


Hermione's Day Out (with Tony and Sherlock)

by HyperMint



Series: Summer Contacts [9]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, NCIS, Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2905994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperMint/pseuds/HyperMint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione runs into Tony and the (in)famous Detective Holmes on a trip to London. From there, she gets swept up into a missing person's case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters and settings which are recognizable belong to their respective owners.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi and welcome!
> 
> This'll be a short one, I'm afraid, but Cycles of Life seems to be writing itself, so...
> 
> This is finished, so that's a bonus. Oh, and Happy New Year!
> 
> Now sit back, hold on and thanks for riding with the crazy 'Detective' we all know and love.
> 
> (Pray extra hard for the next season to come out soon!)
> 
> H.

It wasn’t often that Hermione Granger got to just run around London.

Usually, the rising Seventh Year was just in the city to go visiting the magical Diagon Alley for meeting with two of her best friends and going school shopping.

Well, the first wasn’t going to happen this trip and the second was already half done. There was no rush, it was still the beginning of July, after all.

Which meant…

There was nothing to do.

She’d done her homework in June – much to the consternation of her three best friends (one of whom was a grown man working in America, though it was probably because he thought she needed to get out more and relax) – and couldn’t go to see her friend Harry Potter.

She couldn’t see her other friend Ron Weasley until the Order escorted her there, either.

The Weasley wedding was coming up at the end of July – the week before Harry’s birthday – and Hermione, for one, was interested at what a magical wedding was like.

‘Oh, it’s kind of like a Muggle wedding,’ her American friend, Tony DiNozzo, had commented around exams week a few short months ago. ‘One of Booker’s cousins got married after our graduation, and we all got invited.’

Not like she’d been to many Muggle weddings, either, though she always had the picture in her mind of a perfect day for any girl.

Well, except her. She was already ‘married’. To three people.

In any case, she was happy with her circumstances and was currently wandering London before lunch.

Her parents were in the city for visiting with old friends and she was allowed to do what she wanted.

She didn’t quite feel like going to Diagon Alley just yet, and she wasn’t hungry, either, though it wouldn’t be long.

She had the money for lunch and if she wanted dinner. Her parents told her to take the rest of the day and spend the night at the Leaky Cauldron, since she didn’t usually get to go and it was her last year of school. She was planning to join Harry and Ron in the Ministry as Aurors, but they would ideally like to work with Tony in America.

She and Harry actually went to visit his office at the Navy Yard during Spring break. They’d been searching for the ‘gold star’ that he’d told them to look for via mobile. It was a long story that she was, even now, still coming to terms with, but it had been an interesting experience nonetheless.

Hermione actually passed the Cauldron a handful of times, already, but wasn’t quite ready to go. She supposed that she wanted to explore Muggle London before heading for the magical one.

She found herself drifting in and out of stores without really buying anything and found herself near a cluster of bookstores.

She saw some antique stores further down the street and was about to head down to investigate when her ear caught a familiar voice.

“You know, normal people collect butterflies and stamps.”

“'Normal people' are dull,” a different one replied.

“Are you calling me dull? Because if you are, I’m leaving you up there.”

“Tony?” she frowned, taking off after where she thought she heard his voice. She found a small group of trees growing between buildings and a familiar figure under one looking up. “Tony,” she called.

“Oh, hey, Mi,” he glanced over. “I can’t decide if he’s collecting evidence for a case, bird-watching, or just screwing with me to get me out here. You can never tell with him.” He nodded slightly before remembering who she was. “Mi! Look at you,” he smiled widely, hugging her tight. “You got so big.”

“I just saw you at the end of May,” she grinned back.

“Was it that long ago?” he shook his head. “Does time fly. I just hope that one realizes that he can’t,” he gestured up. She looked to see a person in the tree, with dark curls and light eyes that were narrowed down at them.

“Who is that?” she asked Tony.

“That, is the infamous Consulting Detective – only one in the world – Sherlock Holmes.”

She’d heard about Sherlock Holmes, of course. Who hasn’t?

He was an internet phenomenon and the magazines had been selling articles about him since before the last school year even started. If you had a case you couldn’t solve, Detective Holmes was the person to go to.

“Oh, is he on a case?” she wanted to know. “Are you on one, too?”

“I think there was something about tree branches he wanted to experiment on, but you can never be too sure with that one.”

Mr. Holmes landed nearby.

“What happened?” Tony asked. “Didn’t find any bees?”

“Ms. Granger, I presume,” he smiled slightly and she saw that he had greyish silver eyes. He was certainly tall, about Tony’s height or so. “Quite a lucky day, indeed.”

“Yeah, I was going to drag him to lunch,” Tony told her. “I’m starting to get hungry. And no ‘it’s just transport’ or I’m going to tell on you to the Inspector.”

“I highly doubt Gavin will be the one worried about my health. Mostly John worries.”

“One, his name is Greg and, two, your ‘not boyfriend’ flatmate is a doctor and is supposed to.”

Hermione had to smile as Sherlock huffed and responded. This was apparently a normal conversation between the two of them as they traded quips without pause. “Who knew you were friends with a celebrity?” she marveled.

“Remind me again who our friends are,” Tony poked her. “And I’m not his friend, I’m his ‘casual acquaintance’. Whatever that is after almost a decade.”

“Perhaps we should try that bistro down the street,” Sherlock posited.

“Now you want food?”

“Ms. Granger is obviously about to go looking for one,” he informed him. “A lady should never go unescorted for lunch.”

Tony stared at him.

“Oh, I was going to wait,” she shook her head. “Really, you don’t need to stop with your case to get me lunch.”

“Or were you just doing that ridiculous tree experiment that you swore to me was done a year ago?”

“Neither,” he waved airily. “Now, come. They have a particularly delicious sandwich sauce that I’m interested in trying.”

“… That was taken from Hooper, word for word, wasn’t it?”

“Of course not, don’t be an idiot. Ms. Granger, it would be our pleasure if you would join us for an early lunch,” he gave a slight bow.

She turned to look at Tony, who sighed.

“This had better not be another experiment,” he warned. “Mi’s off-limits.”

“Of course she is,” he whirled around and strode off.

“Um,” Hermione smiled slightly. “You don’t have to go to the trouble.”

“I really am getting hungry, though,” he shrugged, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Besides, Curly Top’s got a point. As crazy as he is, he was brought up as a rich kid, so there’s something to be said about his manners. When he decides to show them, that is.”

Hermione suddenly realized that this could be counted as the first time she and Tony had really been alone together.

Usually, the others were around and could buffer them – especially Harry - , so she didn’t quite know how to act around him.

“Actually, I’m glad we ran into each other,” he slowly started off in the opposite direction that Mr. Holmes went. “I know that Harry’s really the only one I know, but it’s been bothering me for a bit of a while that I don’t know his best friends as well. I mean, last year was something else entirely, but I meant spending time as a person instead of Agent the dog.”

That was certainly an understatement.

Early last year, when school was a month or so in, the Trio found a black dog at the edge of Hogsmeade that they had assumed was Harry’s Godfather, Sirius Black. It had never occurred to them to ask, since everyone knew that Animagi could not have the same identical animal forms, and the Trio only knew one black dog to begin with.

As it turned out, Tony himself was an illegal Animagus who – for reasons unknown – was a grey-eyed black dog.

“Well, yes, I was just thinking that as well,” she agreed.

“I mean, the four of us… and I don’t know you or Ron as well as I probably should. So, I was thinking that I could spend some time with the two of you separately since it seems that I’ve been dating Harry kind of since we met. It’s nice to get to know your friends a little better, right? Only now, I need to figure out what I’m going to do with Ron. Any suggestions?”

“You want to spend time with us?” she asked shyly. “You don’t really have to if you don’t want to. I’ll be fine when we all hang out together.”

“Yeah, but the four of us are connected you know how and, I figure, if we keep hanging out with each other until it dissolves enough, then we’ll need to know quite a few things about each other. Which reminds me, I have this idea that I never got around to telling the three of you at school. I mean, two people outside of the four of us know and it’s only a matter of time until Sherlock does…”

The four of them – Tony, Harry, Ron and Hermione – had all found themselves married to each other in their Fifth Year. One of the conditions of the marriage bond was constant contact with each other.

“I know that Agent Donners does,” she spoke of Tony’s MNP supervisor, “but who’s the other?”

“A Vampire I know. Nice guy, but I forgot about him being able to detect these kinds of bonds, especially since he knows me. I thought I’d fix that, too.”

“What was your idea? Oh, and everyone believes that we’re just friends with you,” she pointed out. “I’m pretty sure we can keep writing to you and maybe visit.”

“I don’t know,” he frowned thoughtfully. “Something tells me that the Order wants us to cut ties.”

“What?” she reflexively fisted his jumper in her hand as if he was going to disappear that very moment. “Why do they want us to do that?”

“I really don’t know,” he shrugged, squeezing her arm reassuringly. “But I’m not planning on going anywhere – never mind leaving the three of you alone with them. I can’t help wondering, though, if any of them happen to know about a certain thing concerning a certain black haired friend of ours.”

When Tony had been recuperating, he had revealed that there was a prophecy concerning Harry and Lord Voldemort. That just made her a little nervous.

“If they do know,” she lowered her voice so that only the two of them could hear. “That would sort of explain why they keep Harry in particular so … protected.”

“I would have said ‘bubble wrapped’, but yeah. I might not want him dead, either – for various reasons -, but if he is going to be an Auror, then he’s going to need to be trained to defend himself. They can’t be there all the time, so he’s going to need to know a few things in order to keep from getting hurt.”

Hermione sighed. “That isn’t likely to happen. But we don’t quite know for sure if they do, remember. If they really do want him to stay safe, I agree about needing some sort of defense training. He’s already got a talent for it, we all do. But they make it seem like we can’t do anything. That we’re inexperienced and need to rely on the grown-ups.”

“And that’s a way that they’re going to get you all killed,” Tony was disgusted with the Order’s well intentioned actions. “If there’s ever an opportunity for me to join, I am just going to walk away. A kid like Harry isn’t going to sit around and wait for something to happen. If they want him going rogue, I can tell them to keep going like they are. If it were me, I wouldn’t hold back with any sort of information.”

“Then it’s probably a good thing you aren’t in the Order,” she had to smile. They – and especially Mrs. Weasley - wouldn’t tolerate the ‘children’ being told the truth and the children in question were chafing at the restraints. Tony would cave instantly.

“And I would prefer if the three of you weren’t either,” he told her seriously. “Even if there’s the slightest chance you were to get in, don’t. I don’t care what they threaten you with, walk away. If they really do make you cut ties with me, find me and I’ll see what I can do. None of you are going to be blackmailed into the Order because that’s just going to be trouble all around. I won’t let any of you be the reason that the other two are in there.”

Hermione didn’t know why she was worried about Tony not accepting her, because she could feel the protective fury surrounding her as she was hugged tighter. “I’m going to tell Ron when I get to the Burrow,” she hugged back. “There’s a chance that he would be pressured into it, if not me.”

“I am going to tell the three of you that when I get there, too,” he nodded. “If  you are pressured into the Order, you know where I live. I’ll make Donners _and_ Vance pull strings if I have to.”

And she knew his feelings about Director Vance.

“We’ll be in good hands, then,” she smiled brightly, a weight lifted from her shoulders. Tony would help them. His coworker, Jimmy Palmer, would, too. And at least one MNP Agent.

“How is everyone in America?”

“Doing well,” he smiled down at her as they came to a half-filled bistro. “They asked after you guys, too. Remember Eames from the Hospital Wing? He says that he’d like to meet the three of you again under better circumstances.”

She fondly remembered the Animagi calico who had allowed her to dangle string in front of him. “I would like that, too.”

“Mac and Palmer were invited to the wedding,” Tony added. “You’ll be seeing the three of us for two whole weeks, aren’t you lucky.”

She grinned. “I can’t wait.”

It was going to be forever, now that she knew what was going to be in store for them.

“Where’s Mr. Holmes?” she looked around, suddenly remembering they were with him.

“Probably just realizing he’d just walked three and a half blocks in the wrong direction,” he snickered. “We’ll order for him.”

“Are you sure?” she didn’t know one as well as she knew the other.

“I’ve known Curly Top for longer than a lot of people have,” he shrugged. “Eames comes at a close second, of course.”

“Did you get to know Eames through Mr. Holmes?”

“I guess you could say that,” he shrugged.

They got a booth near the middle of the bistro and had just ordered drinks when Sherlock finally turned up.

“Finally realized it, did you?” Tony grinned. “How far did you get?”

He refused to answer as he threw himself into the booth next to Hermione.

“We ordered for you,” she told him.

“Yeah,” Tony huffed. “Do you know everyone in London?”

“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Uh huh,” green eyes tracked to brown and Hermione had to stifle a laugh as he rolled his eyes. The staff had told them that they would personally see to their comfort. When she remarked how friendly they were, Tony told her that Sherlock probably saved the manager’s sister or something.

Sherlock took his mobile out and tapped a quick message. “I ran into one of my former clients,” he told them, looking absently around at their fellow diners. “An acquaintance has disappeared and we’ve been tasked to find him.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Tony shrugged, sitting across from the pair. “Though, I’m surprised you’ve decided to take a case un-worthy of your notice.”

“It is simple, yes, so it shouldn’t be difficult for the three of us to track him down.”

“Three?” Hermione looked between the two of them. “You don’t mean me, too?”

“Why not?” Tony shrugged. “You aren’t doing anything, right?”

“Well, no, but –”

“It’s settled,” Sherlock nodded. “We’ll start after lunch.”

“Where, exactly?” Tony asked.

“The antique stores will be our first stop, as he’s known to be something of a collector of things. I have a few questions needing answered.”

Suddenly having empathy for Harry when she or Ron steamrolled over him, Hermione shrugged and settled down.

What could it hurt, after all?

There was nothing else she wanted to do and she was curious about Tony and Sherlock’s relationship. There was the snipe of shared experiences, with just enough warmth to not take the other seriously.

She was strangely reminded of a pair of siblings who’d been through too much together.

** *


	2. Chapter 2

After lunch, the three headed for their first antique shop.

It wasn’t unusual, reminding Hermione of some of the shops she and her mother sometimes browsed.

It was mostly books and furniture, along with obligatory knick-knacks lining the shelves of one wall in the back.

Sherlock headed for the cashier presumably to want answers, as Tony and Hermione wandered nearby.

They found themselves browsing the odds and ends at the back of the store and she smiled slightly as she found a little snow globe of a black dog prancing in the snow.

“Tony, look,” she showed him, both getting the joke. When he was Agent, Tony had loved playing in the snow. The way that little black dog was posed showed a mini scarf around its neck. Hermione almost dropped the globe as she was hit with a memory of her scarf flying toward one of the towers surrounding the Quidditch Pitch. “Tony, remember that day when you made my scarf fly?”

“What about it?”

“Me and Harry followed it, as you know, and we overheard Carlin and Aniston say something about OL. I don’t think we ever found out what that referred to.”

“They were still looking for me,” he mused. “Though it would have been a lot easier if you’d just asked Palmer, Mac or one of the others. OL is something that all MNP Agents know as a code word. You know the term AWOL as ‘Absent Without Leave’, right? Well, in the MNP, it’s known as ‘A Witch/Wizard Off Land’. Another name for the Muggle ‘Agents Afloat’.”

“You were an Agent Afloat,” she filed that information away for later. “I forgot all about it.”

“Me, too, to be honest.”

Sherlock appeared next to them a few seconds later. “Nothing here.”

“I should probably be thankful you told us instead of racing off,” Tony snorted at the other man’s grin. “Let’s go, Mi.”

She bought the snow globe and let Tony shrink it before putting it into her purse.

“It’s shatter proof now,” he told her.

They went to a slightly bigger store down the street.

“This one has jewelry,” Hermione noted, going over to look. Some of it actually looked recent.

“There’s some hair things,” Tony added, standing next to a basket. “Want one?”

She sifted through them and found a pretty hair brooch. It had a type of flower that she’d never seen before. The orange petals appeared to be drooping as the brown middle rose toward the imaginary sun.

“That’s called a brown-eyed Susan,” Tony studied it over her shoulder. “It would look nice in your hair.”

“I don’t know,” she twisted her mouth. Something told her to take it, but she put it down on the glass case the basket rested on. It was something pretty, yes, but she was quite honestly not sure. She didn’t have much to spend and it was probably for the best that Sherlock struck out, there, too.

Tony walked them halfway to the next shop before turning right back around and marching back to the shop.

“Don’t pay him any mind, Ms. Granger,” Sherlock steered her forward. “Americans are odd like that.”

“Hm,” she glanced over her shoulder. “I guess. Oh, um, Mr. Holmes?”

“Sherlock, please.”

“Sherlock… are you… a wizard, too?”

“No, however, my flatmate is one. John doesn’t realize that I know. Tony told me about it some time ago.”

“Oh.”

Sherlock let her browse through a prominent display of wooden carvings as he disappeared into the back.

She wasn’t sure what to make of him. He was nice enough, she supposed. Tony wouldn’t be friends with anyone who wasn’t.

Except his team, perhaps. She had not been impressed with them when they all had dinner in America.

Dr. Mallard and Abby Scuito, perhaps, but not the others.

“Do I dare ask where he went?” Tony walked up to her a few minutes later.

“He’s in the back, I think. Where did you go?”

“Something I forgot to get,” he shrugged.

She nodded as she continued looking through all the carvings. There was a skillfully carved owl that reminded her of Harry’s and one of a snowflake she thought Fleur Delacour might like as a wedding present. She was looking in her wallet, frowning as she added up the prices and fell short, when Tony wandered back over looking thoughtful.

“What’s wrong?”

“I wanted to get something for Harry and Fleur, but I don’t have enough.” She showed him what she wanted and he smiled slightly.

“Tell you what. I’ll buy the snowflake and we’ll give it to Fleur together. You can get the owl for Harry.”

“But I was also going to get dinner in the city before heading to our favorite pub,” she whispered.

“You can go to the bank and get the money for dinner in the Alley,” he shrugged. “If I’m not mistaken, there’s a place there that I like going to when not in the mood for pub fare.”

“I guess I would have to go to the bank anyway,” she mused. “I’m running low. And I need to get a room for the night. Mum and Dad said I could.”

“Sounds good.”

They looked around some more before Sherlock found them.

“They hadn’t seen him, either.”

“Dead end?”

“Not quite,” he shook his head, curls moving subtly. “There is a bookstore not far from here that is a more likely possibility.”

“Alright. Let’s just buy this stuff.”

When Hermione hadn’t been looking, a little presentation box had been added to their small pile.

“What is it?” Hermione wanted to know.

“Well, it’s for someone I know,” he shrugged. “As a present for putting up with me.”

“I’m sure they’ll like it,” she admired the soft covering. Turning it over, she blinked as she found a small SB in the corner. She looked back up. ‘Sirius Black?’ she mouthed.

He shrugged again. “Nice coincidence, huh? I might use the box again for him. He did, after all, have to put up with me, too, in his house and I thought it would work as something of an apology for impersonating him last year.”

“It’s hardly your fault if you look like him. Though you shouldn’t,” she frowned again at the thought.

“I’ve come to accept it,” he told her. “Not like I can actually do anything about it.”

** *


	3. Chapter 3

They left the shop and headed for the bookstore not far from it.

“See anything you like?” Tony grinned as Hermione looked around.

“Not yet,” she smiled back. It took a few minutes to look around, though she was sure all the books were lovely. Drama, mystery and thriller books just didn’t compare to what she’d been through already.

The store also sold stationary and she was just about to look for something she could buy, when she glanced up in time to see Sherlock approach Tony with a handful of papers. She couldn’t hear what it was that they said, but Tony suddenly grabbed the papers out of his hand.

“ _Give_ me that, ya freak,” he rolled them up and whacked him upside the head with the rolled up tube. Sherlock didn’t seem to mind, absently rubbing the back of his head as he spied something else of interest and dashed off after it.

“Full of energy, isn’t he?” she laughed at the exchange. Tony didn’t mean to call names in a mean way, but the fondness in the way he said it made it clear to her that it was some kind of endearment between old friends. She looked back at Tony and frowned as he stood frozen with the tube still in hand. “Tony?” she moved closer to see a horrified look on his face.

“ _Please_ tell me I didn’t just marry us again,” he hissed, his green eyes locked on hers. “To _him_.”

“Tony, that’s not going to be a problem,” she smiled in amusement. “First, he’s really not so bad; Second, we are in a, you know, _Muggle_ shop; and Third, -”

“If the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with the impossibility of being married through objects," he threatened, "I’m hitting _you_ with this next.”

“Ah, there you are,” Sherlock spied them. “Our witness is here.”

“Now, what’s this about?” a man slightly older than Tony frowned as Sherlock swept them through to the back.

“My colleagues and I are in search of a Mr. Reginald Jenkins. It was our belief that he was a regular around here.”

“Well, your information is wrong,” he crossed his arms. “Why should I tell you anything, even if I did know who you were talking about?”

Tony snorted almost inaudibly as he leaned close to Hermione’s ear. “Shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why?” she wanted to know.

Sherlock’s gaze had sharpened as it moved up and down the manager’s form.

“Here it comes,” Tony disguised his laugh with a cough.

** *

Fifteen minutes later, they walked from the office with the address of one Mr. Jenkins.

Hermione just shook her head. What she’d witnessed had to be something near magic.

Sherlock had taken one look at the man and said, “Three safety violation codes, which in itself is one thing, if not taken into account the other things that you’ve been doing in your time off.”

Tony had been shaking with suppressed laughter at that point.

“What other things?” the man had demanded.

“Let’s have a look-see, shall we?” Sherlock’s smile was razor sharp. “You are embezzling money from your cousin’s job in Japan, also dull. There are two safety hazards here that have been continually brought to your attention, yet you keep ignoring them. Your girlfriend has a bit of a lesbian side to her and I can’t blame her at all for _that_. One of the women she is sleeping with is the sister of the martial arts teacher from down the street, who would not take well to knowing that you have also been cheating on his sister’s girlfriend with three of his students. Take note, Ms. Granger, that one of them is, in fact, the nephew of a particularly influential television personality. You are also blackmailing your landlord in order to pay rent at half-price, which is mostly for your girlfriend’s second girlfriend, whose brother is quite a lay…”

“But how did he know all that by just looking at him?” Hermione asked Tony as they headed down the street to flag a taxi.

“If I had to hazard a guess, I would have to say day planner.”

“Day planner?” she frowned. “I didn’t see any.”

“Really? I did.”

They made it to the address twenty minutes later.

“No one’s home,” Tony noted.

Hermione looked around, not familiar with the area. There were modest gardens in front of modest homes and she thought it would be a nice neighborhood to explore one day. The area was well kept and there were not that many others out on the street.

She glanced back and blinked as Sherlock knelt in front of the door. “Tony, is he seriously –”

“All part of the job with him,” he shrugged. “He knows what he’s doing.”

She could only watch as Sherlock got the door open and the three of them slipped in. She looked nervously around the stairwell of the flat they’d broken into, half-expecting something to start up a racket that would end up with the authorities coming after them.

“Not to worry, Ms. Granger,” Sherlock murmured. “We have this completely under our control.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think it sounds,” Tony sighed, obviously remembering quite a few ‘completely under our control’ incidents.

They journeyed upstairs to a rather nice unit.

There was a chrome, white and black sort of theme from the small lights hanging from the ceiling, to the shaggy rug under the coffee table in front of fireplace over which a flat-screen hung.

“Mm, a true bachelor’s pad,” Sherlock snuck into the kitchen.

“Mi? What do you think?”

She glanced at Tony, who looked curious. “Well, it’s clean.”

“Clue One. Go on.”

“What clue?” she frowned. “Just because it’s clean doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not under normal circumstances. Tell me about this bookshelf.”

She sighed and joined him in front of the bookshelves to the right of the door. “Besides the obvious being a bookcase?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nudged her.

She took a good look at what she was seeing in front of her. “He likes cats,” she noted, seeing pictures of them. There were a number of books on varied subjects bookended between feline pictures and things that she supposed were art if one tilted her head to the side and used her imagination. She told him all these things and watched as he smiled.

“Very good. Now, rewinding the conversation to a few minutes ago, you said that this place was clean. You have Crookshanks, right? What is something that every cat owner is used to seeing?”

Well, that was easy. “Cat hair,” she said confidently. She had to get used to that, too.

“Right,” he beamed. “Now, do you think that Jenkins has these cats?” he drew her attention to the pictures.

“They are the same three cats, so I would imagine so.”

“What bachelor’s pad would be clean, even with three cats?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Look at the colors. Light fur would show up, wouldn’t it?”

She moved to the black furniture. “There’s no cat hair,” she reported after a few minutes.

“And?”

“If he has three cats,” Hermione posited, “and cat hair gets everywhere, then where are the cats?”

“Ten points to Gryffindor! That’s a very good question. Now, check out the coffee table.”

Smiling brilliantly at arriving to the correct conclusion, she joined him at the coffee table. “It’s highly polished.”

“It is. Looks almost brand new, doesn’t it? Like it’s never been used. Or been used regularly.”

“That wouldn’t mean anything,” she frowned up at him.

“Oh, but it does,” Sherlock leaned against the study entrance, watching them with crossed arms. “Mr. Jenkins works from home. You’ve noted the lack of irritating felines, Ms. Granger. I’ve found no other signs of them in this house. The coffee table indicates little use, as does the kitchen and a fairly more regularly used study. The beds are all made, the rooms dusted almost to the point of sterility and – from my personal experience – this unit in particular does not tell me that the bachelor who lives here has put any sort of personal touch that he _chose_ to display.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen your place,” Tony smirked. “You aren’t at home until you have at least eight piles of books on the floor almost half your height, the mail stuck to the wall with a knife and acid stains all over the kitchen.”

“You know me too well.”

“You said that he didn’t choose to display any signs of personal touch,” she crossed her arms. “Could you explain?”

“Think about what he told you,” Tony shrugged. “You have everything you need to know.”

‘Well, let’s see,’ she frowned, going over everything. ‘Sherlock said that there are no cats in the flat, but there’s obviously three cats belonging to Mr. Jenkins. There’s no sign of any cats, except the pictures. He also said that Mr. Jenkins works from home, so the kitchen should get more traffic than what is being told. The coffee table looks sturdy and there is obviously no polishing smell that would say it was cleaned recently. Sherlock said that the personal things were not chosen, so…’ “Why would he display things that he didn’t choose to? Doesn’t he live here? I presume that if he lived here, he would choose –” she suddenly caught Tony’s eye, before she turned back to the bookshelves. “Pictures of cats. Of course I would display the picture of Crookshanks, but only cats?” Then she remembered Tony’s office at the MNP. “Why not of people, too? Tony is a bachelor and … Tony, that’s it. This place doesn’t look… _lived_ in.”

“And _that’s_ the problem!” Tony picked her up and twirled her around. “Why would a work-at-home bachelor make it seem like no one lives in his apartment? We’ll make a detective out of you yet!”

She laughed in delight at getting the clues to draw the right picture. She _adored_ the rush of being right.

“Simple answer: this is a cover to keep others out of the real flat,” Sherlock nodded at her, the ends of his mouth curled up in approval.

“So, where is the real flat?” Hermione looked over at him as Tony set her back down. “And why use a cover?”

“That’s the complicated answer,” Tony told her.

“Fortunately,” Sherlock revealed a matchbox. “I found something that might point us in the right direction.”

** * **

When Hermione Granger had woken up that morning, she had no idea that she would end up in a pub with Tony and his Muggle friend while on the case of a missing person.

But, here she was.

“You know, it hasn’t been that long since lunch,” Tony frowned at his watch as Sherlock scowled at his mobile. “You’re certain the staff don’t know who he is?”

“Fairly,” he muttered, tapping out a reply to someone.

“It would help if we ordered something, though,” he pointed out.

“Not hungry.”

“I meant a drink. This is a pub, yes? Mi, see anything you want?”

“Erm. Well, I think I would like to try this purple drink,” she consulted the drink menu.

“I think I will, too,” Tony looked. “I mean, I know that pubs are known for their alcohol, but their non-alcohol drinks look just as good.”

“Fine with me,” Sherlock didn’t seem to pay any mind to them as his sharp grey eyes moved around the dim interior.

It was still early, so there wasn’t many in right now. It was a regular pub, much like the ones she’d been to in the Magical world, except for the absence of magic. She didn’t mind, though.

According to those who didn’t know any better, Sherlock and his ‘niece’ were taking an old family friend about town. It was a new experience for her to be something she wasn’t for a few minutes.

The Detective’s mobile rang again and he rolled his eyes with a huff.

“That goldfish giving the Yard trouble, huh?” Tony raised a brow.

“Goldfish?” Hermione frowned.

“A woman has a goldfish and it’s the only witness to her murder,” Tony told her. “Lestrade and the others have been trying to get Curly Top on the case, but he says it’s too simple.”

“I cannot devote my precious time to hold their hands,” said Brit sniffed, still looking around.

Their drinks arrived and Hermione found it actually better than it first appeared. “Not bad,” she mused.

Tony hummed as he took a mouthful. “You’re right.”

Sherlock didn’t touch his, deciding to bound off instead.

“And where is he off to?” Hermione frowned after him.

“No idea. Probably after one of his informants. He must have run into one on his way back to the bistro after meeting with the client.”

Sipping at her drink as she kept an eye out for Sherlock’s return, Hermione recalled something Tony had said before lunch. “You said you had an idea concerning the bond, right?” she scooted closer.

“Oh, yeah,” he remembered. “You know how we signed a piece of paper about it? Well, I was thinking that instead of a paper, there might be some people who would really need to know, so maybe we need a notebook or something instead to keep it all straight.”

Tony – the Trio had found – was seldom without some sort of small notepad in his pocket. It was a holdover from his job, but it was actually very handy to have. He had two notebooks already; one for his magical office and one for the Muggle one.

It sounded rather nice, actually, to know that they had a claim on him as well, one big enough to need a notebook.

“Have you picked one out, then?” she wanted to know.

He sheepishly dug into his pocket and took out a small spiral notebook in response. It was smaller than his other ones, with a small book on the front. A chess piece was on the front cover of the book and the ribbon bookmark displayed a single lightning bolt.

She was beginning to detect a pattern there.

“It’s lovely,” she admired. “Will I have to sign it again?”

“If you don’t mind.”

They both signed it and watched the blue pen’s ink flash red before turning black.

“There,” he smiled at it. “All done.”

Sherlock appeared not a minute later and was forced to sign his name, too.

Hermione looked at Tony sharply, who shrugged.

“He’ll figure it out in his own time, anyway. Might as well get it out of the way before then.”

“There was an associate of our hapless Mr. Jenkins in the back,” Sherlock informed them. “And he dropped this,” he laid a rather long key on the table. “I was about to tell him about it, but he must not have heard before he left the establishment.”

“Dropped,” Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I bet it was. You stole it.”

“He obviously knew something, anyway,” he waved a hand.

Hermione studied the thin key in front of her.

It was slightly longer than her hand’s length from the tip of her middle finger to the point where her palm ended. The tip was a jumble of angles that made the keyhole a sure match in the shape that looked kind of like a star. There was an old-fashioned yellow ‘J’ on the top, which was what Tony himself zeroed in on.

“I see,” he tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Mi, drink your soda. I know where we’re heading next.”

“Explain,” Sherlock frowned at him.

He picked up the key. “See the ‘J’? What would something yellow have to do with the letter ‘J’?”

Grey eyes stared blankly.

“You deleted that, didn’t you? Of course, you did. Look. Mi, I’m not sure if you know this, but back during World War II, Nazi Germany was spreading. They blamed all their troubles on the Jews and forced them to wear yellow stars.”

“And you think this has something to do with this key?” she confirmed.

“I know it does. There’s a place not far from here that is a Jewish store. I’m thinking this unlocks some kind of mailbox, so we’ll go there and check.”

That sounded logical.

She drained her drink and some of Sherlock’s before it was taken care of by Tony. Sherlock was waiting by the door, eying one of the waitresses and it looked like he was going to say something to her until Tony grabbed him by the collar.

“Let’s go, Holmes,” he pulled him out. “I don’t care if she has more than one girlfriend, but I wouldn’t advise breathing a word about her dog.”

Hermione had the feeling that statements like that was going to be normal for the two of them. She certainly didn’t understand it.

** ** *

Tony apparated them to an alley across the street from the shop in question.

Hermione peered around the wall to look at the shop a few feet away. There wasn’t much to see, due to the curtains hiding most of the small windows and something inside blocking the rest.

“Quaint,” Sherlock eyed it.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Tony poked him.

“Of course not.”

“Stop sounding so condescending when you say that.”

“So,” Hermione turned away from the shop to address them. “Will Tony and I be waiting here while Sherlock goes in?”

“No, he doesn’t fit the bill, really, and I would rather not use magic, so Muggle it is.”

“What?”

“You have your radio, right?”

“Well, yes, of course, since I always carry it, but –”

“Good,” Sherlock stuffed the key into her hands. “Act like you’ve been sent there by an older relative and no one will ask.”

“Wait, you don’t mean to send _me_ –”

“Why not?” Tony wanted to know. “You have the right coloring. Jewish people are generally always brown/brown. Sherlock won’t be fooling anyone and I’m Italian. I know it’s kind of stereotyping, because there are exceptions – some Jews were mistaken for Aryan, I’ll have you know - and not all are white, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

It was clear they had already made their minds up and she wasn’t going to get them to change it.

She resolved to be more lenient with Harry and Ron this next school year when it came to homework.

Double checking her radio’s location, she made sure her wand – which she never left the house without after Fourth Year – and the key were both safe before she breathed in and took a step out of the alley.

Before she could get far, however, Sherlock suddenly tugged her back and she staggered into him.

“Don’t forget this,” she blinked as he dropped a necklace into her hand. “It’s crucial to use the necessary props to display the correct image.”

“…”

“He means that you need to fit in,” Tony clarified. “Don’t act like you don’t know what you’re there for. If you’re confident enough, the people around you will believe what you want them to.”

“… I… see…”

“Tony does this kind of thing on a regular basis,” Sherlock told her. “It’s actually very simple.”

“Don’t you get nervous?” she turned to him.

“Mi,” he led her away from Sherlock as he tapped on his mobile and Hermione followed. “I am going to be completely honest with you. Sherlock, over there, doesn’t understand that no one is as good as he is, but I want you to know that – no matter if you are an inexperienced Muggle or the most seasoned Agent – _everyone_ gets nervous. Yeah, I go undercover a lot more than others ever will, but I still get shaky when my life and those of my team are on the line. Things like what you’re going through right now is something I would do in a heartbeat, but – according to what we found out about Harry – I’ve decided that I am not going to be like the Order. The three of you are turning into incredible young adults and are contemplating going into a dangerous field. This is an opportunity for you to get some on the job experience and I am sorry if I steamroll over you about things like this, but I cannot in good conscious send you to a department like the Aurors on the Order’s method of not letting you do anything to help.

“I understand that they are in a dangerous position, but they are putting you into a worse one in thinking you can’t handle yourselves. I think you can, alright? I know you can, because look at how far you’ve come at school. In your six years, you’ve beat Voldemort, a Basilisk, Dementors, have kept Harry together all by yourself _and_ found an illegal Animagus, as well as founded a Defense club against all the rules and – and helped me the last year. You could do all those things, you can beat this assignment right out of the park without batting an eyelash. Okay?”

“Okay,” she sniffed, her eyes wet and a warm feeling flooding through her at Tony’s words and his conviction in her. She mustered a smile that startled him with the warmth it incited in him and she grabbed him tightly with as much strength as she could summon. “I won’t let you down. I’m going to be the best partner you and Sherlock and Harry and Ron and Palmer and Mac and Sirius and Remus will ever dream of having.”

Tony hugged back just as hard. “Better not let Eames hear you about that,” he teased, a little misty-eyed himself. “He’ll just take you up on that and demand rematches every time you trounce him, insisting you were cheating.”

“Would he?” she pulled away to wipe her eyes.

“Probably not,” he smiled almost sappily. “You just smile at him like you just did at me and he’d fold like a house of cards. He’ll fill your bedroom with chocolates and flowers and probably every book he can lay his hands on. And then, he would probably want to buy you other stuff that you would probably not know you would need until you forget it in your pocket and you end up digging it out when your back’s to the wall.”

There was a story there, but she made a note to ask later.

“I would like to meet him when he’s not a cat,” she pulled herself together.

“Well,” Tony took the Star of David necklace and put it around her neck. “He said you were all very lovely and he would like meeting you when my life’s not in danger.”

“How does that possibly connect to each other?”

“You know, I’m not sure. He goes a little rant-happy when he’s worried sick, so I wasn’t paying too much attention. Or taking it too much to heart.”

Oh. She thought she started to understand.

So, Eames was something of a brother to Tony? He must be the older brother, worrying all the time, but…

She didn’t think they were truly related, so, they had to be … stepbrothers, perhaps. She didn’t actually know anything about Tony’s family, but this seemed to explain that relationship.

Which left Sherlock.

Hermione gathered her courage and Gryffindor bravery and left the alley, leaving the two behind her as she walked to the few steps across the street to the five steps leading to the door.

She put her thoughts about Tony and his – maybe – stepbrother and Sherlock’s unknown relation to them aside to focus on not letting Tony down in his decision to let her do this. He’d been right, after all. She needed some kind of experience, which probably led him to inviting her on this case, anyway.

Putting all other thoughts aside, she straightened her spine and felt an odd calm come over her before she opened the door.

A bell tinkled overhead.

“Good afternoon!” a younger girl smiled widely from where she was checking out the candle display.

“Good afternoon,” she smiled back.

The other got called off somewhere else and she was left to peruse the inside.

To either side of the door she came in from, there were books displayed about crafts and cooking and other such subjects.

There was the candles in front of her and to her left, she found a lot of knitted work, that was on display for some kind of charity sale. To her right, there were cooking spices.

The rest of the store was similar and she wondered if other Jewish stores were like this, when she remembered the fact that Tony was probably waiting for her to check in.

She rooted around in her pocket and extracted –

“…”

“That’s one of the newer models isn’t it?” a different younger girl smiled warmly at her blank expression.

“Er.”

“My cousin’s like that,” she passed her, a bag on her arm. “She begged for the newest model for months and she still can’t make heads or tails of it.”

Hermione smiled weakly after her and moved out of the way of the door before resuming her bewildered staring at the mobile – one she _swore_ she’d never seen before in her life – that used to be a radio.

The mobile had a book charm dangling from the top and she was trying to remember if Tony had said anything about the radios being able to disguise themselves as mobiles or something when he gave one each to the Trio that one Christmas, when the radio-mobile squawked and an icon came up on screen telling her about a new text message.

It took some doing, but she finally managed to read it:

_‘I promise to leave something for you. TD’_

Another message came up.

_‘So, you’ve finally remembered to sign your texts. SH’_

_‘No thanks to you, Holmes. TD’_

_‘We must set an example for the next generation. SH’_

_‘I despair for the next generation if you’re their role model. TD’_

_‘They should be so lucky. SH’_

_‘At least tell me you didn’t dump the radio. Do you have ANY idea how long it took me to make that one? TD’_

_‘Three months, two weeks, four days, eighteen hours, thirty-six minutes and forty-one seconds. SH’_

Silence.

Hermione shook her head at the both of them.

That was almost sibling-like…

The light suddenly went on in her mind. That was it!

Why didn’t she see it before? It was _obvious_.

The mobile chimed with an incoming call and she quickly answered.

_“Mi? I thought I’d let you know that Holmes is a dead man and the trip to prison will **totally** be worth it.”_

“Tony?”

_“I was trying to get a hold of you on the radio, but Curly Top had that smug look on his face –”_

“Tony, I’m in.”

_“Huh? Oh, yeah. Look for a curtained area. It might be in the back and you may have to ask around.”_

“Alright.”

She asked the first girl from before and soon found herself moving aside the curtain to see a small brick wall. There were three key holes spaced evenly apart and she sighed in relief.

“Okay, there’s three keyholes.”

 _“I don’t think you need me to talk you through that,”_ Tony quipped.

He was right.

She went for the star shaped hole in the middle and inserted the key. Not realizing that the curtain was closing behind her, she turned the key and waited.

And waited.

“Tony, nothing’s happening.”

_“Something should. Give it time. Look around to see if something’s come up, okay?”_

She stepped back to the curtain and scrutinized the wall. It took a moment before she lit upon something sticking from above the keyhole. “Tony, I got it!” she grabbed it and looked at the front of the envelope, because that’s what it was. “I have two addresses here.”

_“That’s great, Mi! Bring it out and we’ll have a look. I knew you could do it.”_

She beamed to herself at the pride in his voice and stuck the envelope in her purse. Then, she turned to the key –

Only to find it gone.

Hermione’s brown eyes swept the floor, but only came up with the rug that was underneath the wall. She whipped around and her eyes widened when she found the curtain closed. She didn’t remember closing it…

“Tony?” her eyes flicked back and forth between the curtain and the wall as she carefully stepped back, keeping herself between them. “The key’s gone.”

_“Did you drop it?”_

“No…” she took another step back. “Tony,” another step, “I can’t be sure about this,” step, “but… I think this place has magi – _aah_!”

** *


	4. Chapter 4

She remembered going to bed Halloween night in her First Year amazed at actually having lied to teachers for once in her life.

Since then, she’d continually amazed herself at how she kept finding ways to get around the teachers. Because of that, she now had three close friends – who were also her ‘husbands’ besides! -, who she never imagined she would have in her wildest dreams.

She would do whatever she could to help them, because she knew they would do the same for her when push came to shove.

But, as she stared up at the ceiling far above her, she wondered if stepping into a case with Tony and Sherlock was one of her finer moments. Sure, she now had some undercover experience, but she highly doubted if Tony ever found himself stepping back onto a sort of trapdoor mid-word.

If she’d been a more superstitious sort of Witch, she would seriously wonder if this was some kind of omen.

Sighing, she blinked stars out of her eyes as she sat up on the pile of old mattresses she found herself lying on.

“What in Merlin’s name?”

She must have blacked out from the shock or something.

There was no way for her to know what time it was, since there were no windows, but there were candles floating around the room.

“So I _was_ right,” she sighed, getting to her feet. “That shop did have magic.” How odd, though, that it seemed much like a Muggle shop instead of a Magical one.

With the candles lighting the floor, she found that the mobile had flown out of her hand to smash against the stone floor.

She hoped Sherlock wasn’t going to be upset with her for wrecking his mobile.

Looking around, she saw that a menorah was mounted on the wall above the exit. There was nothing else of note in that room, just her, the candles and the mattresses.

She didn’t think she was injured, having been sheltered by the mattresses, but examined herself as much as she could and found nothing serious.

Hermione frowned slightly once she got her bearings.

Should she stay here? Tony and Sherlock would be looking for her.

But she should probably explore a bit to see if she could get out by herself. She didn’t even know how to contact Tony, though. Didn’t even have his number.

Compromising, she ventured out of the room and saw a number of tunnels branching from the main one she was in.

“This is more complicated than I thought,” she surveyed a little further before shaking her head. It would be too easy to get turned around.

That didn’t stop her from going the whole length of the main corridor.

She was heading back to the room when she passed one of the smaller tunnels and when she did, she thought she heard a faint voice that sounded like Tony.

“Tony?” she called out, deciding to go down the tunnel.

It went a long way, but two of the candles had followed her and lit the otherwise dark tunnel.

She called out again and the voice answered close enough to recognize it as Tony.

It took some doing, but they finally managed to meet up after a few false leads, in a different corridor.

“Hermione?”

“I’m here, Tony,” she rounded the corner and was immediately swept into a tight hug.

“Thank Merlin, you’re okay,” he squeezed tight. “I didn’t know how much further I would have to go.”

“Do you know what happened?” she wanted to know, eventually drawing away.

“Yeah. When you turned the key, it must have triggered some old charm to get the young Jewish witches and wizards to safety during World War II. I’m thinking it was put in place at key points throughout the city as a precaution against the Nazi invasion that obviously never happened. It was a big fear back then.”

She could imagine.

“Where’s Sherlock?” she looked around, finally realizing there should have been two meeting her.

“Our friend with Scotland Yard swung by after we lost contact with you. Sherlock’s probably reaming him out for dragging him to a three. Er, it looks to be an open and shut robbery case not far from the Jewish shop, relatively speaking. Anyway, I think I know where one of these tunnels comes out.”

“So, Jenkins is a wizard? That place really _did_ have magic,” she told him, the candles on either side of her.

“I started suspecting that about the time I found his broomstick at one of the antique stores. You know, the one with the carvings.”

“How do you know it’s his broomstick?” she wanted to know.

“You’ll see when we meet back up with Sherlock,” he shrugged. “Figure I’d tell this only once.”

That sounded reasonable.

They moved down to a different tunnel and started walking.

“I still have the envelope,” she told him, digging it from her pocket and handing it over.

“Looks like the first address was the cover apartment that we went to,” he mused. “This one here is a different one. I’m pretty sure Curly Top knows where it is. He’s got a whole GPS system in his head. Did you open it?”

“No. I didn’t really have time before I dropped into the escape tunnel,” she rubbed her forehead.

Tony nodded before opening it himself. “Hm. Nothing,” he extracted a blank piece of paper. He held it to the candle light, but shook his head. “Maybe it needs sunlight to work. There are certain types of inks like that, you know. I know one needs rain to let the ink work. There are those used for candles, too.”

She nodded at that. Maybe she could get one of those inks to try for herself.

Deciding to table that plan until later, they continued on and eventually found a way out in an alley way.

“Thank you,” she told the pair of candles that had followed them. “I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Tony echoed, waving as they flew back to their original places. “I’m sure the people who used to use the tunnels already had a way out. But they probably used them on a regular basis.”

“Do you know what happened to my radio?”

“I think Curly Top has it. He swiped it earlier.”

“I broke his mobile,” she showed him.

“He’ll get you another one.”

“Huh? You mean it’s not his?”

“No. That was supposed to be yours.”

“Mine?”

“I think it’s because he wants to pester you in the future,” Tony shrugged, leading her down the street. “Although, I will warn you. If he offers you something that smells like a banana smoothie, dump it on his head like I should’ve done instead of drinking it like I did.”

“… I’ll be sure to remember that.”

Believing that they were going to meet up with Sherlock, she was surprised when they entered a clothing store.

“We’re not going to meet up with Sherlock?” she followed him to the dress area.

“Nah. He’ll probably meet up with us. This case was the first on his list, so he’ll come back to it. Plus, what we found out about Jenkins can make it even more juicy to him.”

“So, we wait, then,” she looked around, unsure what to do with herself. Tony glanced over before huffing.

“We aren’t here for me, you know. Look for a dress you like.”

“What do you mean? I don’t need a dress. Well, besides the wedding, but Gabby told Ginny that I was going to be a bridesmaid with them.”

“From what I understand,” Tony shrugged, browsing through a rack of purple. “There’s going to be a reception before the wedding, for all those staying before the actual day.”

“Oh. Oh, alright,” that was something she hadn’t considered.

Conceding the need for a new dress, she moved off further into the dresses and was just nosing through a rack of spaghetti strapped clothes when she started feeling like she was being watched.

She looked around, but didn’t see anyone.

Hermione moved to another rack, but felt the same watched feeling following her. She looked around again, her eyes tracking over the rack she’d just moved around, when she noticed a gap in between the clothes and a familiar pair of grey eyes peering out at her from that gap.

“AJ?” she smiled warmly at the Hufflepuff that she and the boys had found themselves befriending last year. Though the former First Year hadn’t seemed to like her all that much at the beginning, she had warmed up to her at the end of the year. Hermione was sure that the week they’d spent sharing a room at Vince Muldoon’s house during the Spring break earlier this year played a very big role in that.

“Hullo, Hermione,” she beamed back. “I can’t wait for the new year to start.”

“I can’t either. What are you doing here?”

“I have to find a dress for the wedding at Ron’s house. Are you looking for one, too?”

“Well, yes, in a way,” she leaned lightly against the rack across from AJ. “I’m going to be staying before and after the wedding.”

“I think Piper wants me to think about spending the night, too,” AJ shrugged. “To ‘socialize’ with my friends.”

“I know Harry and Ron will be happy you’ll be there. I’m excited and I know Ginny doesn’t really like Gabby, that’s Fleur’s younger sister, so she’ll be glad to drag you around the house, too.”

“Is Gabby nice?” she wanted to know.

“Well, it’s been some time since I’ve last seen her, but from what I remember, yes. Her sister was one of the Champions during our Fourth Year.”

“Like Harry was.”

It was cute how AJ seemed to have adopted the Boy Who Lived as an older brother. And it was astonishing how quickly that connection had been forged.

“Yes, like Harry was.”

So, would that mean that AJ was technically her little sister?

She’d never had one before.

Of course, that would mean that Gabby would be her little sister, too.

It was actually something she would need to get her mind around.

“Um, Hermione? Can you help me pick a dress out? I don’t know what to look for.”

“I usually let Mum do it,” she admitted. “But it shouldn’t be too hard. What color do you think you would like?”

They decided to look for AJ’s dress first.

“What color would you like?” Hermione studied her critically. With the smaller girl’s coloring and light natural tan, she thought grey, brown or blue. Maybe green, too.

“I think maybe some yellow,” she looked down at herself.

“Not too bright, no. Maybe some darker shades of yellow. Or pale. Pastel would work, too.”

They found some nice candidates, one with a diagonal red stripe running from her left shoulder to her right hip.

“We should have you try them all to see what works best.”

“Can we look for yours? Then we could both try them.”

“Well, I – Sure. Okay. Um, let’s see.”

AJ helped her pick out some – some of which they had to go back to find bigger copies of – and they found the dressing rooms.

They slowly went through the piles, showing the other brunette the dress and debating which one looked better than the last.

“Mi?” Tony called.

“Yes?” she stepped out in a green dress.

“We might have to wrap up and go find Sherlock,” he twisted his mouth. “Lestrade wants me to go and help.”

“I thought you said it was going to be open and shut?” she frowned.

“Yeah, I thought so, too. Of course, it could be because a certain someone probably just destroyed half the crime scene. In any case, Sherlock will be there waiting for the next clue in our missing person case.”

“Hermione,” AJ opened the door next to hers and came out in a very nice green and blue dress that gathered into a rose at her left shoulder. “I think I want this one.”

“That’s an excellent choice,” she nodded as the rising Second Year gave a twirl.

It came to her knees and the light green and blue colors were done like brushstrokes on a blank canvas. Her right strap was a bit thinner than the left, but she saw nothing wrong with it.

“Doesn’t that look nice, Tony?” she looked up to see an odd expression on his face, like he was trying to place where he’d seen AJ before. Of course, he’d seen her before! He had, after all, spent most of the last school year with them as his Animagus form, Agent.

“I think I have a headband that can go with this,” AJ mused, looking down at it.

“Tony?” Hermione frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” he shook his head. “Looks good, AJ.”

“Thank you?” she tilted her head up at him.

“Oh, Harry told him about you,” Hermione explained hurriedly. Outside of the Trio, there were only a handful who knew the truth about Agent. “I think one of the Creevey brothers even snapped a picture of you and Harry sent it with a letter.”

“I have a good memory,” Tony agreed. “You look just like your picture.”

“I don’t really like Dennis and Colin,” AJ wrinkled her nose. “Their cameras hurt my eyes.”

“They’re not so bad,” Hermione defended, slightly agreeing, though. Harry kind of felt the same way.

“So, AJ, are you here alone?”

“No. Piper should be coming back from down the street. Oh, Hermione, did you pick your dress out, yet?”

“I’m working on it,” she told her. “But I do think this one is nice.”

“No,” Tony flat out told her. AJ nodded in agreement.

“Alright,” she went back to change into a different one.

Other dresses were rejected and Hermione let Tony go get more.

One of the dresses she rejected, however, was one that she really liked, but it was much too expensive for her.

It had split sleeves and transitioned from a scarlet red to flawless white chiffon material from the waist up and brown-eyed Susans scattered all over it, grouped near the bottom. She probably would have bought the hair brooch if she’d known that there’d be a matching dress for it.

Eventually – after much debate between AJ and Tony, much to Hermione’s amusement -, it was decided to take the dark blue dress. It sort of reminded Hermione of the time of day between sunset and night.

Hermione put up a fuss when Tony told her that he would take care of it, but AJ managed to drag her out by the door to wait for Piper.

The middle-aged Witch seemed surprised to see her with AJ.

“Piper, this is Hermione. She’s going to be in Seventh Year.”

“Hello, there, Hermione,” they shook hands. “A fellow Badger?”

“No, she’s a Lion,” AJ corrected.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Johnson,” she told her, not entirely sure why AJ would call her Mum by her first name, but she’d heard that there were Mums out there who allowed the children to call them by name to foster closer relationships.

“Oh, no, my dear,” she smiled gently. “She’s not really my daughter, though I do wish that to change when enough time has passed.”

“She’s my Foster Mum,” AJ told the stricken older girl.

“O-oh… I… I’m sorry. I think you said something similar and I forgot about it.”

“It’s alright.”

“Oh, now, I recognize you,” Piper smiled widely. “You’re one of Mr. Potter’s friends, then.”

“Why, yes, she is,” Tony finally appeared. “Hello, I’m Tony and you must be this Foster mother I’ve heard about from Harry.”

“Did he tell you my blood-type, too?” AJ seemed more amused than annoyed at the idea that Harry was telling Tony about her.

“B neg,” he looked her up and down. “Probably.”

“Sherlock can tell what someone’s blood type is just by looking at them?” Hermione asked skeptically.

“I’m pretty sure, yes. Don’t have concrete proof, though. Speaking of whom, we need to get moving.”

Hermione started slightly as AJ hugged her. She automatically hugged back. “I’ll see you at the end of July, then.”

“Okay,” she let go reluctantly.

“I’ll see you, too,” Tony waved. “Along with the boys.”

They headed down the street, but not before AJ waved after them.

“Bye, Hermione! See you later, Professor!”

“Oh, is that who that was? What does he teach?”

“I don’t know. He's…” they entered the store and the conversation was lost.

“ ‘Professor’?” Hermione glanced up at him. He shrugged.

“Better than saying my friend from America. Less suspicious that way. I wonder where she got that idea, though.”

** *


	5. Chapter 5

They arrived at the robbery scene almost an hour later.

“Took your sweet time,” Sherlock sniffed as they approached, him waiting for them at the tape.

“Not all of us keeps updated GPS data in their heads, you,” Tony scowled.

“Tony!” a prematurely grey-haired man suddenly appeared behind the Detective. “Good to see you, mate.”

“Greg!” he pulled the smaller man into a bear hug. “See ya haven’t shot Curly Top yet.”

“I’m surprised _you_ haven’t! I missed you being around the past year. What happened?”

“ **Undercover** ,” Tony and Hermione automatically chorused, response so ingrained at this point that they didn’t think twice.

That, of course, meant that Greg – whoever he was – noticed Hermione. “Who’s this, then?” he held a hand out.

“A cousin,” Sherlock deadpanned. “She’s just visiting for the weekend with one of her girlfriends and I thought it would be beneficial for her to see how useless law enforcement is.”

Hermione blinked at him and was about to open her mouth, when Tony nodded.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you, then,” the Italian turned to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Greg grabbed him by the collar before he got far.

“I’m ‘useless’,” he lamented. “I think I’ll go drown my sorrows –”

“I never said _you_ were!” Sherlock seemed to teleport to Tony’s side. “Come, now,” he grabbed the other’s elbow and forcibly escorted him under the tape. “You are no longer in law enforcement, so I don’t know why you take offense.”

“I technically never left! You do know what they call me, right?”

“An idiot?”

The pair went on as they continued into the building, their conversation fading with the distance.

“Never a dull moment with those two,” Greg huffed a laugh, smiling warmly at Hermione. “Greg Lestrade. Detective Inspector with New Scotland Yard.”

“Oh, Hermione Granger.”

“I didn’t really buy that story, you know,” he leaned closer. “But, I’m not going to ask. Sherlock has a way of doing things.”

He led her inside the building after the other two.

“I didn’t mean to ruin your afternoon, though,” he continued.

“Oh, you didn’t,” she shook her head. “We were just on a different case.”

“Then I’m doubly sorry,” he smiled wryly. “I just wanted Tony here to dumb it down for us. I have no idea how the two of them met, but I find Tony easier than Sherlock.”

“They might be related,” she voiced as they climbed the stairs.

“I believe it,” DI Lestrade smiled slightly with an odd look on his face, like he knew something, but was humoring her, anyway. “Come along, then. To the roof.”

“Why?”

“Well, that’s the problem. Tony told you some of the details, I take it? We assumed it was a robbery. In a way, it is. We were here for one robbery and ended up with five more. This is where it gets complicated. All six robberies occurred within thirty minutes of each other. We’ve ruled out anyone who is affiliated with any companies who have visited these six places within the last year. I have people going back further, but it’s taking ages and we don’t know how they get in or how they knew what to look for.”

It did sound intriguing, so she hurried after Lestrade to see what was going to happen.

They reached the roof, where Sherlock and Tony were standing back-to-back in the direct middle of it. 

“Well?” Lestrade raised a brow.

“Over there, perhaps?” Sherlock stuck a hand out to point off in the direction he was facing.

“But how?” Tony shook his head. “There has to be a way that makes sense.”

They switched directions and scrutinized the next few rooftops in the new direction.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Sherlock returned to his original direction and Hermione felt her heart stop as he took a running leap off the roof.

“Sherlock!” she cried out.

“And there that one goes,” Greg, long used to this, watched his ‘actual’ consultant safely land on the neighboring roof, before clambering out of sight. “Tony?”

“Send some of your people out four, no, five rooftops from here in our directions. We’ll tell you where we end up. C’mon, Mi.”

“What?” she balked.

“By the time he gets to his end and some of the Yarders reach him, he’ll want to go back to figure out the other direction. Might as well save him the trip.”

“We aren’t going – No, I think I’ll join DI Lestrade.”

“I could stay with her,” Lestrade agreed.

“Oh,” Tony studied her, before nodding.

She was suddenly hit with the memory of Harry looking back at her in their First Year, when she had elected to stay with Ron after the chess game. Then again during the First and Second Tasks.

The look in Tony’s green eyes made her heart constrict at the almost disappointed air.

It was like when Harry stared back at her before going off on those occasions, like he didn’t want to go by himself.

“Well,” the look was suddenly hidden so well she couldn’t remember if she’d actually seen it. “Alright, then. See you soon.”

He walked over to the ledge and was eying the distance between roofs, about to jump, when Hermione told herself to be a Gryffindor and spoke up.

“Wait! I’ll go with you,” she reluctantly walked over to stand next to him.

“Are you sure?” Tony eyed her.

“No,” she shook her head. “But let’s go anyway.”

She hadn’t been able to help Harry during the actual Tasks, and it had made her so nervous about his safety.  Tony, she knew, was more than capable of handling himself, but what if…

“I guess we’ll see you, Greg,” Tony shrugged, taking her hand. “Alright, Mi,” he leaned down. “Jump when I say to, okay? Now, you’re going to need to help me. Run as fast as you can before jumping. Don’t think, just do.”

“Alright,” she squeezed his hand. Tony wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

They backed up a few steps before – with Greg watching – they started running toward the roof ledge. Hermione felt her heart race as the edge drew nearer and closed her eyes as Tony yelled, “Jump!”

She jumped with all her might and, for a few seconds, felt nothing but air all around her as they held hands.

Then, suddenly, they landed with a jolt.

“Oh, Merlin,” she breathed, glancing back to see Lestrade waving at them before he left the roof. “That - that – that was –”

“Invigorating, wasn’t it?” Tony beamed. “Okay. Same principle, different roof. Just do like you did the last one, ready?”

“No,” she smiled slightly. “On three?”

They roof-hopped a few more before Sherlock used Hermione’s radio to get in touch with them.

_“You should be in the correct area.”_

“So you didn’t dump it after all.”

_“Go downstairs and take a left out of the building.”_

It had been sort of fun at the end, but Hermione was just glad that was over. “Are we going to be doing that again?”

“Nah,” Tony smiled at her sigh of relief. “Walking and taxi cab riding from here on out.”

“I’m pretty sure Harry might enjoy it,” Hermione told him, the pair going down the stairs to street level.

Sherlock directed them to a small space between several buildings, where Lestrade found them a few minutes later.

“How do you do it?” he shook his head at Tony as they walked around some sort of ventilation box. “I would’ve gone mental, always being dragged off roofs like that.”

“Ah, what can I say? But I’m just glad I don’t do that all the time,” Tony stretched his back.

“What do we have here?”

“Ventilation system. Fairly recent, by the look of it. Sherlock must’ve found one at the other side.”

“Of course,” Lestrade rubbed his eyes. “The ventilation company. I knew something was off there, but couldn’t figure it for the life of me.” Seeing Hermione’s look, he explained, “Last year, Parliament made this thing about new regulations with the companies and… Well. I’m going to call the Yard and tell them to focus on the ventilations.”

“Someone stole things from the customers? But what about knowing what to steal and where to find it?” Hermione frowned between them.

“A ring of interns, who don’t know any better, is supplying someone – possibly a former worker who has convinced them of non-existent power concerning their continued employment – with information and details about the families’ absences.”

“ _How_ do you just appear like that?” Lestrade almost had a heart attack when Sherlock suddenly materialized next to him.

“Magic,” he intoned with a straight face, winking at Hermione as he emphasized the ‘c’.

“Careful, Curly Top,” Tony deadpanned. “Someone might think you were serious.”

“Back to the case,” Lestrade frowned at them. “So we think it’s a former employee blackmailing interns, attached to one of the ventilation companies.”

“No, I think quite a few of them,” Tony shook his head. “The goods are slipped into the vent systems, waiting for someone on the other end to get them. Thirty minutes apart is just a cover. Someone came around before then to take the goods. Then, someone came around and made a racket as someone else created a decoy.”

Hermione glanced at Lestrade and didn’t feel bad as she saw him struggling to follow, too.

‘I have a headache.’

“We’ll write it out for you,” Tony smiled wryly.

“So, where are the stolen items ending up?” she frowned, rubbing her temples.

Both Sherlock and Tony glanced at the small ventilation box before some kind of light went on in their heads and they shot down one of the alleyways.

“Up for a chase, then?” Lestrade quirked a smile at her before he called in a car that met them on the street.

They ended up some blocks away at a bigger ventilation box where Tony and Sherlock waited for them.

“Mi, get the radio,” Tony told her, a torch in his hand. “There’s a pipe big enough for me to climb into. If we’re right (“Which we are, of course.”), then there should be some of the stuff inside this big box.”

“Why should you go?” Hermione frowned. “Sherlock can do it.”

Both DI Lestrade and Tony just turned to him, who stared back.

“I think I trust Tony more,” Lestrade quipped, giving Tony’s shoulder a pat. “He’s not likely to do anything just to make more trouble.”

Tony was pleased at that, Hermione smiled as he ducked his head to hide the delight. It was always nice to be told that someone trusted you.

Sighing, Tony climbed up into the pipe and held his radio up as he looked down at them. “Give it up, Holmes. I’d feel better if Mi had it back.”

“Fine,” he sniffed, handing it over to her as Tony moved out of sight.

Hermione checked in and the other two stood on either side of her as Tony periodically reported in.

 _“Yeah, there’s definitely stuff in here,”_ he told them. _“Want me to toss them out to you?”_

“Get pictures,” DI Lestrade spoke to him. “I know you have a small camera in your pocket. We can use some to it as evidence.”

_“Yeah, I got some. Sending a few up and I’ll take pictures of the rest.”_

Lestrade went to stand under the pipe opening and took his jacket off. “Sherlock.”

The Brit took a side of the DI’s jacket and both held it under the pipe just in time for the first thing to drop into it.

“Yeah,” Lestrade nodded, carefully eyeing it. “That’s one of the items stolen, alright.”

After about eight such extractions, Tony said that he was going to take more pictures of the interior.

“Will do,” Lestrade nodded, Hermione relaying the order.

 _“Strange, though_ ,” Tony mused. _“I can’t be exactly sure, but this thing’s gutted and it looks like it happened shortly after installing the new system.”_

Evidently, that meant something to the older Brits, because they immediately started whispering slightly at each other about things that Hermione didn’t really understand.

After a few moments of silence, Hermione was taken aback at the burst of static coming from the radio. “Tony? I thought the radios didn’t have static? Hello? Can you hear me?”

_“- don’t… imposs -… - atica … Vat- ”_

“Tony, you’re breaking up. What?” she frowned, holding the radio to her ear as Sherlock looked over sharply. There were two words that Tony seemed to keep repeating, but they didn’t make any sort of sense to her. She shook her head. “Vatican Cameos? What are – ?”

The next thing she knew, her head was hitting the pavement with a near audible smack as she found herself with a mouthful of curls when Sherlock tackled her.

The DI landed on top of them and Tony piled on top of _him_ moments before the ground shook as the ventilation unit exploded.

** *


	6. Chapter 6

 

It was almost approaching sundown when Hermione finally came back to herself in the back of an ambulance with a rather horrid orange blanket wrapped around her.

Her brown eyes tracked the area, panic flaring as she realized that she had no idea where Tony was or Sherlock, or even the Detective Inspector. She was surrounded by so many people and she didn’t recognize anyone.

“Are you feeling alright, love?” she startled slightly as a Healer, no, Doctor… Paramedic? That had to be it… suddenly entered her line of vision. “You don’t have a concussion, though you were taken down rather roughly. One of the Bobbies are wanting to speak to you, but I’m sure she would understand if you want to wait.”

“Huh? Uhm, no, uh, yes,” she slightly shook her head to clear it. “I can talk to her.”

“You’re in a bit of shock,” the older woman smiled gently. “Are you here by yourself?”

“No, I was here with the Detective Inspector,” she craned her head around. “I don’t see him.”

“Oh, he’s still here,” she assured. “I’ll go look for him.”

“Is he alright?”

“He’s fine. Nothing but a dust bath, I’m afraid. Wait here,” she squeezed her arm and moved out of sight, only for another woman – a black one – to take her place.

“Hello,” she gave a tight nod and slight smile. “My name is Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan and I’d like to talk to you about what happened.”

“O-okay,” she nodded, still looking around.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Hermione Granger,” she answered.

She scribbled it down and asked a few more questions before asking what she was doing in the area.

“Oh, well, I was here with Tony and Sherlock – ”

“Sherlock?” she looked up. “As in Holmes? Figures.”

Hermione blinked at the tone. “I’m sorry?”

“I should have known,” Donovan shook her head, scribbling a few more things and looking over it.

Hermione was trying to tell herself that the tone in the other woman’s voice wasn’t _really_ disgust, when Donovan suddenly glanced up and rolled her eyes.

“I see you’ve started filling children’s heads with lies,” she scowled as Hermione followed her gaze to see Sherlock leading Lestrade toward her.

“If you mean that Ms. Granger believes me when I say certain Yarders are useless, I see nothing wrong with it,” Sherlock sniffed. “She needs to learn the devastating truth eventually.”

Hermione didn’t think Yarders were useless and was about to tell him so when Donovan snarled, “You didn’t honestly think I would let you get away with putting the young ones in danger’s path? She will figure out sooner rather than later that you do not care for others outside yourself.”

“Nonsense,” he flicked a wrist. “I care about John, Molly and Tony.”

“Only because one fawns over you and has decided you need a keeper; the other is infatuated with you, and the last is being blackmailed into tolerating you. DiNozzo is too good an investigator to put up with the likes of you – who can’t even be bothered to solve a case that we’ve come to you for help on -, so you obviously have to be blackmailing him with something and I will find out what.”

“I’m _sorry_?”

It took a long moment to Hermione to realize she was the one who’d spoken, but, in all honesty, she didn’t much care at that point.

“How could you think Tony is being blackmailed into anything concerning Sherlock?” Hermione put her hands on her hips, which made her suddenly realize that she was standing. When did that happen? “That’s not what I’ve seen.”

“You haven’t known them long enough to – ”

“That may be, but I’ve known them enough to know that Tony is hanging out with Sherlock on his own. Tony doesn’t need a reason to be someone’s friend.”

“He will to be friends with a freak,” Hermione’s vision had this odd reddish haze as she puffed up and vaguely noticed Sherlock freeze.

“He is _not_ a freak, he is smart enough to come to conclusions that would have gone unnoticed otherwise. Tony knows that and likes him enough to keep coming back. I know Tony and there is nothing that would keep him from helping Sherlock if he needed it. There is no blackmail involved and I personally have a friend who could be considered a ‘freak’ in his own right.” Memories of Harry’s discovery of Parselmouth in Second Year flowed through her. Harry had told her and Ron that his family had called him a freak for having magic.

“But I bet your mate doesn’t drag innocents into dangerous situations when they don’t know any better,” Donovan snorted. “This one is clearly unbalanced and he’ll one day take everyone else down with him. Especially DiNozzo.”

“Then that will be our faults, then, for wanting to be friends with Sherlock,” Hermione narrowed her eyes. “In fact, I will gladly volunteer to go down with him. Tony will be the first because they are obviously brothers somehow, but me and my friends will be right behind them both.”

“It’s almost sweet how naïve people are that haven’t spent more than an hour with you,” Donovan glared at Sherlock, who bristled. “What did you bribe _her_ with? What good does she do you?”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione stepped between them. “Do you not understand what friendship is?”

“Holmes doesn’t.”

“Because he’s surrounded by people who obviously don’t know what it means to begin with! If all his co-workers are as cynical and close-minded as you are, I’m not surprised that he doesn’t understand friendship. Friendship doesn’t need anything like blackmail, which is exactly what you’ve accused Tony of being. Tony wouldn’t act like an older brother to someone who’s blackmailing him and I would know. Tony doesn’t have to be friends with me, but he wants to be. He doesn’t have to be friends with me or my friends, but he chose to be because that’s how he is. Sherlock needs to surround himself with people like Tony and Eames and his other friends because they accept him for who he is and don’t care what he’s like.”

“There you are,” Tony suddenly appeared next to Lestrade, who held him back to let the girls go on. “What?”

“Watch.”

Sherlock didn’t seem to notice as he watched Hermione facing off against Donovan.

“He’s a psychopath,” Donovan threw her hands up. “I’m talking to someone who has no idea – ”

“Donovan,” Tony suddenly went rigid. “That’s enough.”

“You’re obligated to be here,” she told him. “She’s not.”

“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” his eyes went to Hermione as he slowly inched back into Greg.

“Is she going to cry because she’s now beginning to realize that Freak is a danger to everyone around him?”

 _Sherlock_ started inching away at that.

“I’m sorry, but she needs to learn – ”

“That New Scotland Yard really is useless?” Hermione smiled sweetly. “I’m sorry, Ms. Donovan, but I really don’t understand how you think yourself as an investigator worth both Tony and Sherlock’s time if you can’t see a brilliant friendship in front of you. Both myself and Tony are here, not because we have to be, but because we _want_ to be. One of our best friends has been called ‘freak’ many times and I know that he is the best friend any of us could ask for. Tell me, what do you think of when you say ‘freak’? I look at Sherlock and see a brilliant mind who can do so much with it. That is talent, much the same way as Tony may be seen as a ‘freak’ for being so good at his job.

“I like having unusual friends and I like to think I am possessed of an intelligence that will tell me when one of those friends is a danger to me. Sherlock is Tony’s friend, one of his _best_ friends, and I am inclined to like him because Tony wouldn’t be friends with anyone he couldn’t handle. I trust Tony’s judgment and I have for a while now. And even if Tony didn’t know him, I think I would have been Sherlock’s friend anyway, because – contrary to what others, including you, might think – I am more than capable of choosing friends I like. I might not have the experience with Sherlock that Tony has, but I would like to. The first step in becoming someone’s friend is to defend them against others who put them down for being themselves.”

Lestrade was actually impressed at Hermione’s loyalty to someone she’d only met briefly through someone else that she was more familiar with. It wasn’t quite like John Watson, but it was similar enough. From what he understood about Tony’s relationship with Sherlock, something connected the two of them, as well.

So much for a high functioning sociopath with no friends.

Tony and Sherlock were currently slightly behind him in an attempt to hide from Hermione’s potential explosion. It didn’t happen, but Lestrade was glad about it.

Hermione was just _daring_ Donovan to speak.

“Well,” Lestrade cleared his throat. “Thank you, Ms. Granger. We will finish up the reports and have you sign off on it.”

“Yes, Detective Inspector,” her brown eyes locked onto the woman in front of her. “Oh, and Donovan? About your other case. Sherlock is right when he said it’s too easy. You are obviously missing the right clue.”

“And what,” she crossed her arms, “would that be?”

“Well, in order to find that, arrest the goldfish. It’s obviously the only witness to that poor woman’s murder.”

“Arrest the goldfish.”

“Are you really as much of an idiot as Sherlock’s told me?” she tossed her hands up in the air. “ _Yes_ , arrest the goldfish because it’s _obviously_ got something to do with the murder. Or, do you need Sherlock to hold your hand and tell you about a murder that I’ve already solved?”

Everyone surrounding them was silent during the whole exchange and Lestrade finally shook his head.

“We’ll look into it,” he assured.

“See that you do,” Hermione scowled, turning on her heel and marching off to drag Sherlock after her. “Come along, Tony. We have a much more difficult case to resolve.”

Lestrade saw the looks that the two exchanged and shook his head as the three disappeared from sight.

Maybe Granger _was_ related to Holmes.

That last bit at the end was certainly familiar.

** *

Tony and Sherlock made sure that they were a few steps behind the brunette as she led them toward the second address she’d gotten from the envelope before everything.

They decided to walk and night was falling as they wove their way through the streets of London.

They were blocks from their destination when Hermione suddenly froze, as if suddenly remembering the past events of the last few hours.

“Oh, Merlin,” she felt sick. “Did I really yell at a Yarder?” she squeaked, covering her mouth.

“Well, not yell, so much as scold,” Tony eyed her warily.

“It was actually brilliant,” Sherlock told her.

“Well, yeah, of course you would like it,” Tony shrugged. “But I have to admit. It was nice seeing someone face Donovan down.”

“And I would do it again,” Hermione turned to them. “She had no call to say those things about either of you.”

“Well, fearless defending aside,” Tony nodded, “we really do need to solve this case. Mi, tell Sherlock here what happened back at the shop.”

She did as they walked and Sherlock nodded.

“A wizard, then, who hasn’t told the client what he is.”

“But it’s kind of odd,” Tony pointed out. “I mean, someone would have said something instead of dropping from the planet like that.”

“It is,” Hermione agreed. She wondered what could have made Mr. Jenkins leave without a word.

Tony took the broomstick out of his pocket and shook his head. “And now that I see the address on this,” he looked between his companions, “is the same as the envelope.”

“Maybe that’s where he really lives,” she smiled, finally getting somewhere.

“Or something,” he nodded.

They walked a few more blocks before coming to a one story house that looked in need of some cleaning from the state of the front porch.

Sherlock knelt down and frowned at the dark keyhole. “I’ll need a torch.”

“Here,” Tony shone the light from the torch he’d never given back to Lestrade.

Hermione watched them for a few moments before Tony called her back over.

“Make sure he doesn’t accidently get himself killed before I come back,” he stuffed the light into her arms. “I’m going to look around.”

“Alright,” she nodded, taking his place next to Sherlock.

Tony was gone for a minute before Sherlock paused, flicking a glance up to her.

“Thank you for saying that to Donovan,” he refocused on his work.

Hermione smiled slightly, now sure about her conclusion to the relationship between Sherlock and Tony. “If you’re thanking me for that, then you obviously don’t have many friends.”

“As John could tell you,” he lifted a shoulder. “I am not easy to be friends with. I am equally certain that Tony and Eames could corroborate on that.”

“But they keep coming back, don’t they? That’s what friends do. I’m not afraid to be someone’s friend. Harry is going to be going through a lot in the coming years, so I need to step up to keep being his friend.”

Sherlock hummed and kept at the lock. Tony returned a moment later and shook his head.

“You know, Sherlock – ”

“Some of us are not of age, nor have magic,” he told the Italian. “We are doing this my way since you may be suspicious about any magical alerts and the like.”

“Yeah, but – ”

Sherlock turned to frown at him and Tony backed off.

“Alright, alright. I’ll leave you to your work.” He winked at Hermione before ducking back around the house.

“Do you think we should have listened to what Tony wanted?” she had to ask.

“It will get the same results, either way.”

Hermione supposed that Tony was used to Sherlock’s behavior, so she just shrugged and figured he was cooking something up after _that_ smile.

“Is this the house of a friend of Mr. Jenkins?”

“Perhaps. That is one of the reasons we are here, after all.”

She was about to say something else to dispel the silence, but a noise from inside made them both freeze.

Sherlock leapt from the door and pulled her back, taking the torch from her as he did so. He linked their hands together as someone on the inside started fussing with the door and straightened his back, Hermione looking nervous as she glanced up at him.

“Leave it to me,” he quietly assured, giving her hand a squeeze. “Play along.”

She nodded before the door swung open.

“If you listened the first time, Curly Top, we would’ve all been in here already.”

_“Tony?”_

He smiled brightly from inside the house Sherlock had been trying to get into. “Come on in,” he invited. “Let’s see what we can find in here.”

“But how did you get in?” Hermione relaxed and pulled Sherlock along after her into a small hallway.

“Back door,” he shrugged. He closed the front door after them and locked it again. “I’m not sure this is Jenkins’ real place, though. No cat stuff, either.”

Sherlock dropped Hermione’s hand and darted off inside the house.

“So,” she looked around. “What now?”

The house was cozy inside and reminded her of the Burrow with the clutter around the house. It wasn’t overwhelming clutter, but there was just enough to make her feel at home.

“I think that whoever lives here is someone that Jenkins knows,” Tony told her as they trailed after Sherlock. “Jenkins sent the resident a message, but I’m starting to think that it’s a sunlight triggered ink that was used. That makes it somewhat more difficult, I’m afraid. There can be no way of us knowing what time of day to put it somewhere for the sun to hit it, so it may be long after you leave to go back home when we figure it out.”

Oh. That’s right.

She wasn’t going to be here this time tomorrow.

“Has the day really flown by?” she wondered.

“Yeah. I find that happens with Curly Top involved somehow. You get used to it.”

“But what does the message say and who lives here? And where’s Mr. Jenkins?”

“We’ll figure it out somehow. If I have to send a message to you, I will.”

Hermione saw Sherlock dart out of the kitchen and curiously peeked in.

Tony had been right when he said there was no felines there either. A dog pillow was in the corner with the assorted things a dog would enjoy and her eyes tracked to the back door – where a dog flap had been installed.

“Of course,” she smiled.

Tony was an illegal Animagus and his form was a black dog, one that went by Agent instead of Padfoot. Agent and Padfoot would have had no trouble getting in.

“And if Sherlock would listen to the wizard, I think my life would be a little easier,” Tony quipped.

They eventually found themselves in the bedroom area, where Sherlock was snooping through the walk-in closet attached to master bedroom.

“I believe there is a passage here,” he tapped the floor thoughtfully.

“Maybe,” Tony leaned a hand on the doorway as Hermione joined Sherlock.

“You know,” she commented thoughtfully, “this reminds me of yours, Tony.”

During their trip to America during Spring break, Harry and Hermione had stumbled upon an odd clue that led them directly to Tony’s closet, which had a magical storage space only visible when the door was closed.

“Yeah. That’s true.”

“It was smart of you to hide all your magic things in the closet.”

“By the way,” Tony frowned. “How did you think to look in there? I’d put the notebook in there and when Aniston was going after me in the park, I had my cell out and I was hoping to hide the phone there. Except, when he really came after me, I decided that it was going to be safer with me and I was afraid that Aniston would get it and destroy the evidence. By the time I led you three back, I had to be sure that Aniston wasn’t there to follow us.”

“Oh, the mirror gave us the clue,” she told him. “Harry was the one who really figured it out. He said it had been something that Abby had told him when I had gone to the loo at the restaurant.”

“The mirror?” Tony’s eyes went distant. “Oh no. Oh, I remember now. I was supposed to have Louie and Sadie over for Halloween and Louie – you didn’t meet him like Harry did, right? – wanted me to come up with something for a mystery series of paintings or something he’d been asked about. I had this idea to give them a riddle that was only visible after a shower and I had planned to hide something in there for them. I was doing a trial run on it before I went out to the park that night and I’d decided that it was good enough. I set the charm to start on Halloween, but you and Harry were the only ones to have used the shower since I did that and it ended up showing to you, instead. Wow,” he scratched the back of his head. “It must’ve worn off after you two left.”

“And the attic space?” Hermione never thought to ask Tony about it before, having thought that Tony had made it so that they could find the ‘gold star’ on the MNP notebook he used at the office. “We could see it.”

“I keyed in your magic signatures just in case I ever brought you over. Palmer and everyone else doesn’t know about it.”

That cleared a lot up.

Tony shrugged and stepped back from the closet to turn to look around the room, while Hermione crouched down next to Sherlock, who had gone still.

“Sherlock?”

“He’s fine,” Tony waved a hand before moving out of sight. “He does – ”

Hermione startled as the door slammed shut, blocking the rest of Tony’s sentence. “Tony?”

Sherlock blinked out of his daze as she got up to try the door.

“Tony?” she knocked. “What happened?”

She pressed her ear to the door, but found nothing but silence on the other side.

Sherlock gently shuffled her to the side and jiggled the door himself. She stepped back and moved to dig her radio out of the pocket Sherlock had stuffed it in after the explosion earlier.

“Tony?” she spoke into it. “Are you there?”

Sherlock finally managed to get the door open and he would probably never admit to the sigh of relief Hermione heard before he walked out. She followed, also relieved, and was _astonished_ at her surroundings.

Instead of the bedroom that she was expecting, she found a slightly bigger room with a billiards table in the direct middle of it. There were a few tables scattered in a corner and a door across the room.

“Tony,” she spoke into the radio again. “I don’t know what just happened, but we aren’t in the bedroom, anymore.”

“Basement, I’d say,” Sherlock strode around the room and went to the closed door to open it. “Hm. Something of a study.”

Hermione looked around and shook her head. “Sherlock, we should probably stay here until Tony comes to get us.”

At that moment, the radio crackled to life.

_“Mi? Are you two alright?”_

“Yeah, Sherlock says we’re in the basement? It does look like one…”

_“I turned my back and the closet was gone. Then it wasn’t, but you two had disappeared.”_

“Did you walk in?” Hermione turned back to look at the closet she’d just left, but there was nothing there.

_“No, I’m still in the bedroom. It looks like something from Hogwarts. I don’t know if it’s ever happened to you, but one of the triplets – Ravenclaw, I think – ended up halfway across the school when she was coming into one of the empty classrooms a bunch of others were using to study in before Christmas.”_

It wouldn’t surprise her.

Neville Longbottom had constantly been ending up all over the school their first two years, before the teachers cottoned on to what the Ravenclaws already tried telling them and fixed it. Of course, it didn’t always happen to him, but other students found themselves lost in the heart of the school every once in a while and the portraits were always helpful when a teacher hadn’t seen a student since lunch yesterday.

“So, what now?”

_“You two stay there until I get to you. I’m going to get in the closet, now.”_

“We’ll be here,” she assured.

Sherlock had disappeared into the apparent study and Hermione couldn’t find anything else to do, so she followed.

“This is a house of someone magical,” Hermione told him as she stood in the door. “Though, you probably already know that.”

How else would they have gotten down here?

Sighing, Hermione spied the rather comfortable looking sofa and collapsed on it with a yawn. She was tired all of a sudden.

Sherlock wasn’t, moving all over the room and sticking his nose into everything.

It sort of reminded her of her cat or Neville’s toad, Trevor. Crookshanks, however, was part Kneazle, so he was more careful about it. Trevor just seemed to end up where no one really expected him.

It reminded her of a Tower-wide search for the toad after January.

They had all but destroyed Gryffindor Tower as they peered into every nook and cranny and Ron, Dean, Seamus and two others weren’t helping at _all_ when they mused about whether Trevor had gotten out of the Tower and into the school – or, heaven forbid, outside -, reducing poor Neville to tears.

Back then, when they hadn’t known that Agent was really Tony, Harry had pointed him out in amusement when the black dog had trotted up to Neville with a Third Year’s purse in his mouth. Since that particular Third Year girl always had a handkerchief in there, everyone thought that Agent was offering the square of cloth to Neville. It was when Ginny dug it out that they realized that Agent hadn’t been offering solace to Neville after all, but was telling them that Trevor had hopped into the unattended purse and had fallen asleep in there after a while.

 It had been a relief to all when Trevor had been found in that purse.

In hindsight, Hermione really should have thought of asking Agent – no matter who he turned out to be – if he’d seen the toad. He had been in the Common Room for most of the day, after all.

Coming out of her thoughts, she yawned again, her energy stores probably run dry at all the excitement she’d been through. It wouldn’t hurt if she laid down for a bit until Tony got there. Perhaps she would need to think about getting a room at Diagon Alley after this.

She’d been run around all over the place, so she was bound to get sleepy.

Having decided, she lay down on the couch and got herself comfortable. She closed her eyes and smiled slightly at the comfortable feeling the sofa gave her. It felt a lot like she was on… maybe not her own bed, but a bed.

Sherlock was muttering to himself in the next room and between that surprisingly soothing background noise with the sofa under her, it would be just incredibly easy to… drop in… to sleep…

** *


	7. Chapter 7

* **

 

The very first thing she registered was warmth.

It got interestingly chilly at night, so she was glad for that, but it was starting to get uncomfortable.

She turned over and sighed, not wanting to get up, readjusting herself under the blankets as she turned on her si –

_Blankets?_

Her brown eyes shot open.

It came back in bits, but her memory slowly came back.

The last thing she remembered was closing her eyes in the basement of a house while Sherlock muttered about mold in the other room, both of them waiting for Tony to join them.

Now, her eyes were taking in a bedroom that she had never seen before in her life.

Everything was neat and tidy, with a jumper tossed into a chair and a rather pretty rug on the floor.

There was a mirror mounted on the wall above the dresser right across from the bed, which was laying parallel against the wall behind it.

Stuck in a corner of the mirror was a picture of Sherlock, DI Lestrade and a shorter blond man at what was obviously a crime scene.

Hermione stared.

What. In. Merlin’s. Name.

She let her eyes drift up and blinked as she found the ceiling full of twinkling stars in a clear night sky that looked like it was on the cusp of sunrise.

Whoever this room belonged to, had magic.

She carefully sat up under a shooting star and found her clothes still on. She got up, stood on the rug and looked around.

Deciding that there was nothing for it, she crept to the door and listened for a few moments before slowly opening the door to find stairs leading down. Her senses alert for whoever this place belonged to, she crept down the stairs and found the living room in front of her, the kitchen to the left and a door that obviously went outside.

The kitchen was decided to be the best place to start with and Hermione was interested to see what seemed like a small laboratory set up on the table.

She didn’t touch anything, but she looked around with curiosity.

It was clear that whoever lived here didn’t like cleaning…

No. Wait.

A peek into the living room showed a mess even worse than the kitchen.

The owner of the upstairs room was neat and tidy, but it wasn’t down here…

She moved around the room and found a hall branching from the kitchen. One room was the loo, containing a rather inviting bathtub, and the other was a bedroom that was slightly cleaner than the rest of the flat – because that was obviously what it was – and a familiar halo of dark curls was sticking out from the blanket covered lump in the middle.

Sherlock hadn’t struck her as the messy type.

Shrugging, she decided to let him sleep and turned to leave – only to startle slightly as she came face to face with that same blond man from the picture upstairs.

“Hello,” he smiled slightly, blue eyes curious. “Sorry, are you a client?”

“Um,” she didn’t know what to tell him. She tried, but her mind came up blank.

“John?” an older woman’s voice drifted to them.

“Oh, Mrs. Hudson,” he turned with a smile as they heard steps coming up. “Good morning. Sorry I didn’t come in yesterday.”

“Don’t you worry,” an old woman assured as she shuffled to them. She looked like someone’s grandmother, with an apron tied around her and wearing slippers. “Oh,” kind hazel eyes lit up when they landed on Hermione. “Would you happen to be Mi? Tony told me to see that you had breakfast before you left.”

“Um, yes. It’s nice to meet you,” she smiled uncertainly. “Would you happen to know where Tony went?”

“Oh, he had to eat and run, the poor dear. He told me to tell you to keep an eye to the skies for the next few days and have a few treats ready. He’s figured out your little case and the answer will arrive soon enough. That poor man is constantly run into the ground,” Mrs. Hudson shook her head with a tsk. “He needs to take a break. What do you think, dear?”

“He did look tired,” she nodded.

“Is she a client then?” John looked between them.

“Oh, well, from what Tony, the dear, explained to me, Mi is here at the behest of an old school mate of Sherlock’s mother. Sherlock and Tony decided that she would be interested in a whirl-wind tour of the city and the three of them were out all day yesterday. I do hope Sherlock was behaved,” Mrs. Hudson told Hermione. “Tony does wonders with him, even with John being here to keep Sherlock in line when Tony’s off working himself into the ground, but he can be himself a bit too much sometimes.”

“Oh, no, he was lovely,” Hermione shook her head. “I had fun.”

“You must be hungry after having missed dinner. Tony said that you and Sherlock had let the time get away with you, so I thought I would fix you and John a big breakfast this morning.”

“It’s morning?” she started. “What time? I have to leave for my Mum’s friend’s house before eleven.”

“Oh, it’s almost nine, now,” John glanced at the time.

“Let’s let Sherlock sleep,” Mrs. Hudson gestured for them to follow as she turned. “Though, I do wonder what tired him out so much to get him sleeping so deeply.”

John herded her before him. “Mrs. Hudson is our landlady,” he explained. “Sometimes I think she wants to be housekeeper, though.”

Once everyone was introduced and settled in 221A, Mrs. Hudson made sure everyone had tea before serving them.

“Take as much as you like, dear,” Mrs. Hudson told Hermione.

“Thank you for this,” she smiled up at her.

“Tony left you with Sherlock,” she patted her arm. “Both John and myself know that food is not one of his top priorities.”

“Yes, you never did tell me who Tony is,” John frowned.

“He’s an old friend of Sherlock’s,” Mrs. Hudson told him, sipping from her cup. “I think Sherlock was in America and that was when they met some years ago.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” John shook his head.

“Well, I didn’t know Tony knew Detective Holmes before yesterday,” Hermione offered.

“They gave me one story,” she tapped her nose, “but it didn’t take me long to get the truth. I think that Sherlock’s Mum and Tony’s Mum were cousins. Those boys act like they’ve grown up together and I do think that Sherlock – and don’t quote me on this – thinks of Tony as an older brother.”

“Really?” Hermione tilted her head. “I had them at half-brothers.”

“Well, that is another theory, yes. I do know that they have to be related one way or another.”

“Is he anything like Mycroft?” John wanted to know.

“Oh, on opposite sides of the spectrum,” Mrs. Hudson gushed. “I’m half convinced Sherlock talks to Tony when he needs a nudge in the right direction. Neither let that little piece of information get out, but Tony is constantly running back and forth between New Scotland Yard and the American Naval Yard in DC and I don’t nearly see him enough. It was luck that I saw him not two hours ago, running out the door in a panic. He’s going to burn out before his middle age, mark my words.”

“Tony is Sherlock’s older brother,” Hermione told John. “I’m not familiar with anyone named Mycroft, but I think Tony is the favorite.”

“Too right, Tony is the favorite,” Mrs. Hudson snorted. “Let me tell you about this past Christmas. Tony was supposed to visit, but he never did. Sherlock was convinced that the poor man was… now, how did he put it? Kidnapped by ninjas? Anyway, you should have seen the poor dear calling everyone to find him. One of their friends, Eames – equally lovely man, though I do think he needs to relax around his Arthur or he will never know how he really feels about him – finally dropped by while you were at Tesco’s, John, and set him straight. Sherlock was in a mood for ages. Tony finally surfaced, oh, near a month ago, now, and Sherlock refused to let him out of his sight for a week!”

“That explains not seeing him,” John nodded thoughtfully. “I thought it was a particularly difficult case.”

“Believe me,” Hermione snickered, “there is not a doubt in my mind that Tony _made_ it difficult.”

The conversation was minimal, mostly because Hermione realized that she was both hungry and running a little behind schedule.

Sherlock finally appeared wearing fresh clothes in order to escort Hermione to her next location and grabbed a biscuit before he rushed her through farewells and out the door.

Mrs. Hudson made Hermione take some breakfast with her and both she and John waved when Sherlock and Hermione pulled away in their taxi.

“Sherlock,” Hermione sat back with a frown. “How exactly did we get from the basement to your flat?”

“I have yet to figure that out, myself,” he reluctantly admitted. “I was up a few minutes longer than you were. Tony called the radio and said that he was going to be longer than he thought, after finding himself in the attic. I was thinking of how to get out when I must have fallen asleep. Perhaps it was something of a spell, because I normally don’t sleep on a case.”

“That didn’t seem like any kind of spell,” she negated, “but, then, I really don’t know. Tony is the only one who has any idea what happened.”

“Hm, yes.”

They rode in silence for long moments.

“I’m sorry about your missing person’s case,” she offered.

“Oh, I’m not. Tony will explain eventually. Now that we’ve established his true nature, I am confident that Tony has solved it. It was mostly a favor anyway. Although,” his mouth twisted up at the corners. “I have to wonder if the goldfish really did have anything to do with a woman’s murder.”

She groaned as she remembered that.

“Don’t be sorry,” he stopped her before she could begin. “Donovan is constantly in need of adjustment.”

“But I did mean it,” she smiled slightly. “What I said.”

Sherlock studied her. “Yes, you did,” he eventually agreed. “That is your nature. You try as hard as you can to keep to your word and you mostly succeed. But I have to wonder, Hermione Granger. There will be a time that I will hurt Tony. You are most loyal to him, that isn’t surprising, but how far could I push you until you push me away from him?”

“What do you mean?” she tilted her head.

“Should Eames or I end up doing irreparable damage to Tony, and we knew what it would do to him when we took the risk, would you push us from him even if we are closer to him than you to keep him safe? Or would you allow us to stay with him, even though we are the ones that hurt him?”

“I like to think that you wouldn’t put him at risk unnecessarily.”

“But there will come a time when that is not going to matter. How will you separate Tony from those who do him harm, whether by design or accident?”

“Well, that would depend on the friend,” she considered. “And what they did.”

Sherlock hummed.

“I suggest,” he finally replied, “that you take all the facts into consideration before making a decision. Tell me. Who in your world is someone you could trust without question? And I don’t mean those near your age.”

“The Headmaster,” she decided. “Everyone trusts him.”

Sherlock nodded. “If I were you, I would keep a very close eye on him, especially when Tony is involved.”

“Why? What could he do?” she smiled slightly.

“Someone with that much power can take advantage of someone so gullible. Tony may be correct when he thinks that he can see when advantage is being taken, but that does not always apply to him. He needs someone on the outside to see what is happening and to alert him to that potential.”

“But what would Headmaster Dumbledore possibly want so badly to take advantage of Tony?” she shook her head. There was nothing she could think of.

“You know more than I. You tell me.”

She still struggled to answer when they got to her destination.

“But the Headmaster wouldn’t take advantage of anyone if he could help it. And most certainly not Tony.”

“And why not Tony? You would be surprised, Hermione, at what those in power will do to accomplish their goals. They do not care who they use to get their way, so I will be counting on you to watch Tony if you can.”

She had trouble believing it – and it would probably never happen because the Headmaster wasn’t that kind of person -, but decided to put Sherlock’s mind at ease and promised to do her best. She kind of thought it was cute that Sherlock was worried about Tony.

Sherlock smiled slightly and Hermione fancied that she could see the relief on his face that she would do what she could to watch over Tony in his stead.

Had Tony, John, Eames or a scant few others been in the taxi with her, they would have known immediately otherwise and would wonder at the fact that Sherlock was lying to save someone’s feelings.

Hermione got out a few blocks from her destination and bypassed Sherlock’s outstretched hand to hug him tightly. “Don’t worry. Tony will be fine.”

He gave her a few awkward pats before she pulled away to watch him climb back into the taxi.

“Bye, Sherlock. I hope to see you again someday.”

He handed her a card in response. “Should you need anything, anytime, feel more than welcome to contact me. I do not have many friends of your particular category, so it would be beneficial to start collecting.”

She tucked the card in her pocket with her wand and radio – she never did figure out what happened to the busted mobile, but there was no other one in its place – and waved as the taxi drove off.

On her way down the street, she wondered if Sherlock knew that John – because they were flatmates – had magic. She then decided that Tony must have dropped a hint or two, because Sherlock hadn’t batted an eye at some things.

She couldn’t help feeling a bit sad as they left London a few hours later. She did like Sherlock and John and their landlady, as well as DI Lestrade, and she hoped Tony sent her an owl soon so she could know how the case ended.

** *


	8. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely hope this makes sense. :)

* ** Epilogue

A few days before she was scheduled to leave for the Burrow, Hermione was lying on her stomach on her bed before lunch.

She hadn’t heard anything from Tony or Sherlock since she left Baker Street and scouring the papers hadn’t turned anything up, either.

She did hear from AJ, though, which was a pleasant surprise.

The younger girl told her that the triplets would be going with her to the Burrow. The small owl was Piper’s rental, though she wished to get one someday, and was a delight to have.

She did have a few questions about some of the homework and Hermione dug her old books out to write a reply.

Now, she was waiting for any owl from any of her friends.

It was after lunch when she finally got one, but it wasn’t what she expected.

Her parents were going out tonight, so it would only be her at home.

She went back upstairs and blinked as an unfamiliar owl waited at her window sill.

“Oh, hello,” she went to let it in. It had a box attached to its leg, which it lifted with a hoot.

She took the box and the note attached to it in Tony’s handwriting, and the owl flew back out.

She set the rather light box on the bed and opened the note.

_Mi,_

_Sorry I left you at Baker Street, but I had to run back to NCIS. You know how it is. I would like to make it up to you, so be ready to go at six tonight. I’ll even tell you what happened between you falling asleep and waking up the next day. It was actually an interesting story. I look forward to telling you._

_Tony_

She blinked at it and tilted her head.

Be ready to go at six?

She turned to look at the small box and started slightly when she found that it had grown into a full size dress box when she wasn’t looking. The box had the name of the dress shop from that day she visited and she curiously lifted the cover and gasped as she found the scarlet and white dress with those brown-eyed Susans she liked.

How could Tony have known?

On second thought, she wasn’t that surprised after remembering that Tony and Sherlock had been together for ages.

She headed downstairs to tell her Mum that some friends wanted to meet up with her tonight and started getting ready.

She didn’t have that pretty hair brooch, but she made do with a hair clip and, before she knew it, the door was closing behind her parents five minutes before she heard a knock.

Hermione took one last look at herself in the mirror and nodded.

She looked very nice, if she did say so herself.

She opened the door to find Tony smiling brightly at her.

“Sorry about abandoning you,” he gave her a daisy.

“It’s alright,” she beamed up at him. “Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson were wonderful.”

“Oh, you met Watson? Nice guy, isn’t he?”

She locked up the house and let Tony thread their arms together before they set off.

It was a nice night to be out and Hermione told him that she’d heard from AJ and to expect her and the triplets at the Burrow.

Tony told her some of the things he did since they last met up and he even told her of a few of Sherlock’s cases.

“Oh, how are they? I never did see DI Lestrade again,” she frowned.

“He had to take another case,” he told her, “but I told him that I would get your signature on the write-up tonight. That robbery case is solved, in any case.”

“And the goldfish?”

“Yeah, that was an twist interesting, too, as it turned out.”

 Despite her attempts, she couldn’t get anything out of him concerning any of it.

“That’s going to be for dinner,” he waved her off.

The two of them wandered Hermione’s small neighborhood for a half hour before Tony apparated them to London.

“You do look nice,” Tony told her, leading her from the small alley they ended up in.

“Thanks to you, partly,” she told him. “You didn’t have to buy the dress.”

“Yes I did,” he shrugged. “You looked nice in the few dresses you wore at school. Besides, the flowers have brown eyes, too.”

“But my name’s not Susan.”

“Hermione Susannah Granger,” Tony mused. “Nice ring to it.”

“There is no one in my family named Susan,” she rolled her eyes playfully.

“You could be the first.”

Tony told her what Sherlock had told him concerning popular names in certain countries during certain time periods, and that dominated the conversation until they arrived at a small Italian restaurant.

“I know it’s not as fancy as you were probably thinking,” Tony shrugged, “but I like this place and Angelo is a mutual friend of mine, Eames and Sherlock.”

“Could you tell me a little more about Eames?” she asked. “I know he’s a cat and that he worries about you.”

Angelo grabbed Tony before he could respond and she smiled as the pair dissolved into Italian for a handful of minutes before she was herded toward a booth in the back.

Angelo was a cheerful man with a pointed black beard and hair tied back into a small ponytail. He was the owner of the restaurant and Hermione was amused to see a small candle on the table when he left.

“I like this place,” she told him as a pair of waitresses grinned at Tony.

“Yeah, they all know me at this point,” he lifted a shoulder, waving back.

She looked to see what sort of drink she wanted and made her choice.

“You can order what you want,” Tony told her. “Really. I get discounts all the time and it was a struggle to keep Angelo from giving me stuff ‘on the house’ every time, let me tell you. Personally, I think he still does it. See the menu? No prices on these two. I worked out some time ago that he’d been giving me almost half off. Sherlock evidently got him off a murder charge and Angelo’s been grateful ever since.”

She had to smile at the put upon look on his face. "Oh, Tony? I've been wondering about the robbery case that the DI asked Sherlock to look at," she fiddled with her napkin. "I couldn't quite make heads or tails of it."

"Well," he sat back. "A former employee of the company," he began, "was recently fired from the company for trying to skim money from the books - rob the company, basically - and he still had his credentials and everything. But because the interns didn't know that, the employee blackmailed them into helping him by threatening their jobs. They would then research the families, go with the on site inspectors to make sure they knew where the valuables were and go back for them later. Or at least send the information on. The one collecting the goods would stow them in that big ventilation system that blew up, remember? Until it was safe to go back and get them."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "But why blow the ventilation box up if they were going to get it later?"

"Ah, now that's where it gets interesting. The former employee was there maybe a few days before we got there and accidentally left a bomb there while scoping out the catch. He's a member of a Muggle terrorist group based somewhere in the Middle East. Not Al Qaeda, but a smaller group. That's why he was stealing money, he was funneling it all out to his guys. One of the homemade bombs had fallen out of his pocket by accident and I ended up activating it. The guy was going to sell everything in it to the black market or something. That was what he was going to do, anyway, before Lestrade got a hold of him."

Tony had her sign her name on the police report before their waiter came.

“I really am sorry about getting into it with Ms. Donovan,” Hermione admitted.  

“I’m not. And Sherlock isn’t, either.”

“And how would you know that?”

Tony just smiled at their waiter and Hermione had the strangest urge to look up …

Right into Sherlock’s grey eyes.

“Sherlock?” she startled. Her brown eyes running down his form, taking in the clothes mirroring that of the wait staff.

“Your drinks will be out shortly,” he beamed at them. “Enjoy your evening.”

“But we didn’t order – ”

He was gone before she finished.

“He deduced it,” Tony told her. “I think he’s going to get our dishes ready simply by looking at us. Though, I will admit, Angelo’s manicotti just spoils me. Don’t worry about Curly Top. He’s here because he wants you to have a nice time with me. I don’t know if he knows for certain, but I suspect he thinks it’s a date for something you did. Now, while our own personal mind reader is at work, I have to ask. Did you really have any idea about the goldfish?”

“I hadn’t the faintest,” she had to giggle as she remembered telling Donovan off with a boast about having solved the ‘goldfish murder’.

“Well, the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while was the look on Sherlock’s face when Lestrade told him that you were a chip off the old block. It turns out that you were right.”

“But I didn’t know a thing about the case!” she started slightly. “I may have been bluffing about that.”

“Yeah, well, they ‘arrested’ the goldfish and found that the food for the goldfish was tainted with some chemical that would pass through its digestive tract without harming the fish, but it would come out the other end and mix with the water in the tank. The victim had a small cut on her finger where the chemical entered her bloodstream and that’s what killed her. Evidently, the person who had been coating the food with this chemical had been targeting her neighbor in order to get his limited edition scuba diver tank decoration. The neighbor’s fish was actually given to his niece and he got a different kind of fish, which rendered the goldfish food obsolete and the neighbor gave it to the victim since he knew she would appreciate it. The chemical wouldn’t have been found unless one took a microscope to a droplet of water from the tank. It would have entered the victim’s blood and left no trace of it, dying out with the supply of fresh blood. So, the short of it is, jealousy has claimed another victim, the murderer is going to be locked up and I am one of a few proud adults to congratulate you on completing your first solo case.”

“Thank you? I didn’t mean to, really. It was mostly a guess.”

“Some guess,” he grinned.

Hermione was curious about how she ended up at Baker Street and what had ever become of their missing Mr. Jenkins and asked Tony about it, but he still wouldn’t talk about it – even when Sherlock slid in next to him after delivering their dinner.

The subject was set aside for the rest of dinner when Tony slid a familiar box across the table to her.

“What’s this?” she picked it up and turned it over to reveal the SB on the underside.

“Open it,” he exchanged a smile with Sherlock as she did.

When the lid was opened and the prize revealed, she gasped as she found the hair brooch from that other store resting in the silk box.

“That is what Tony went back for, if you recall,” Sherlock tapped the table surface.

“That’s why you gave me this dress,” she pieced together, “because you already bought this. Tony…”

“Now, before you say anything about price,” he held up a hand, “or favors or anything, let me tell you that I have more than enough money for the three of us and the boys, plus others, to use every day for a year and then some. There are plenty of things that I plan on buying for you and the boys and I’m not planning to stop just because you don’t like it. I have a lot of Christmas, Valentine’s and birthday presents to make up for.”

“You really don’t,” she shook her head, but the look on his face made her sigh and thank him. He wouldn’t be changing his mind, so she fixed the brooch to her hair and thought of both the accessory and dress as a belated wedding present, belated anniversary present or an early birthday present.

Maybe all three at once.

Dinner was delicious with manicotti and iced sweet tea. Angelo swung by a few more times to check in on them before they left almost an hour later, their conversation consisting of small talk and Sherlock’s comments on other diners before he suddenly up and left.

It was a fine night when they wandered over to Regent’s Park and found Sherlock in the guise of a street violinist with his violin case open for money.

After the last strains of the song dissipated, Sherlock put his violin down and narrowed his eyes at Tony, who shrugged.

“Okay, I think that’s enough time for you to wonder,” he smiled slightly. “Alright,” the three of them stood in a triangle formation. “Well, after finding myself in the attic, I managed to open the window and used the broom I found in that antique store to get back to the first floor. When I got back in, I found our missing Wizard in the living room with his boyfriend and they were both very embarrassed at having been told that someone had gotten Sherlock on the case. Apparently, the pair had been on a sort of honeymoon after the boyfriend had gotten a raise and the vacation paperwork had taken a bit to get somewhere. It was too late by the time the paperwork went through. The boyfriend has a cousin who inherited the key from a relative. He used the mailbox to send a message to his boyfriend – one I’m sorry I read, by the way – and the key had been in the safety of an associate that was going to use it for his own gains.

“Mr. Jenkins does have cats, but he had to give them to a caretaker until the end of a client meeting who was deathly allergic to cats. It was after the meeting with that client that he went to see his boyfriend – who lived at that address we went to with a dog that was off in the countryside – and they went on that vacation thinking that word had gotten around about the trip. Mr. Jenkins assured me that it was a misunderstanding that they’d found out about too late and they had gotten back for a few hours to set us straight about it. When I told them that you two were in the basement, Jenkins almost blasted the floor trying to get to you. The closet goes to a bunch of locations in a set order – for reasons you _really_ don’t want to know – and it would take forever to get back to the basement. There’s a kind of spell/potion thing down there to discourage Muggle or underage visitors from staying down there while one or other of the pair were out. There’s valuable things down there and – yeah, that’s the whole of it.”

Sherlock and Hermione thought it over and both nodded at the conclusion of a complete, but unnecessary, case of misunderstanding.

“But how would they get the closet back?” Hermione frowned. “There has to be a way to do that, right?”

“…” Tony just looked at her and it could have been the dim lighting that presented a flushed color on his face before he cleared his throat and smiled uneasily. “Next question.”

“If people would only think before coming to me – ” Sherlock began

“You wouldn’t have the Work, would you,” Tony smirked.

He sniffed disdainfully, reluctantly conceding the point.

Hermione looked at the two of them and smiled slightly. “I’m glad you brought me along on the case, Tony and Sherlock.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t walk away,” Tony smiled back. “You could have at any time, but you stuck it out and stood up to someone for Sherlock.”

“Well, sure,” Hermione shrugged. “I didn’t mind doing something exciting and why wouldn’t I defend Sherlock?”

“He does kind of grow on you, doesn’t he?” Tony twisted to hook an arm around the Consulting Detective’s neck.

“He does,” Hermione agreed. Though she suspected that the older Brit wasn’t much of a people person, she did know that he was fond of the friends he had and that fondness was shown toward a person depending on how much Sherlock liked him. She wasn’t sure if he liked her, but she did know that John and DI Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson and, most importantly, Tony were all fondly regarded by the dark haired Brit and Tony was looked upon more as a brother than anything else to Sherlock.

Sherlock cared about Tony and that made him almost guaranteed to be liked by Hermione, Harry and Ron for it alone.

“I am not a plant,” Sherlock huffed as he was tugged into Tony for a hug. “Stop talking about me as if I were.”

“You would be one of my favorite plants,” Hermione assured, feeling her heart melt as Sherlock’s grey eyes lit up with pleasure in a way that reminded her of a child’s face on Christmas. “And I would take you everywhere because I wouldn’t trust anyone else to take care of you.”

Tony’s smile was one of his genuinely pleased ones that Hermione loved seeing on him and he nodded at her approving look. “What kind of plant do you think he would be?”

Hermione smiled slightly. “Well, I think he would be a member of the ‘nightshade’ family.”

“Looks pretty, right, but you don’t eat it unless you want to be poisoned?” Tony nodded. “Yeah, I personally like the darker flowers in that category.”

Sherlock looked thoughtful. “Useful poison… I’m not quite sure I agree.”

“She thinks you are pretty until you decide to be a poison, to protect yourself.”

“I am not ‘pretty’ or – heaven forbid – ‘ _cute’_ ,” he shuddered.

“No, you’re just Sherlock,” Hermione smiled. “A genus all your own.”

Sherlock beamed. “Truly?”

She bumped his arm with hers. “ _Obviously_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me so long. The next installment will be going up within the hour, Cycles of Life.


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